ScribeLife

February 7th, 2010

Capillary Beauty of Trees

For the first winter ever, I am captivated by the capillary beauty of the trees revealed against the bare blue winter sky. My eyes are drawn irresistably to them as we drive the roads and as I walk the 20+ acres of Son Rise. What strikes me about this new love is that until this year, I always felt a bit of sadness over the nakedness of the trees, the lack of loveliness, the “forlorn” look of winter. But without effort, without warning, what was once ugly is now lovely to me, and stirs new wonder at God and his creation. I look at the trees and smile, involuntarily.

So the teacher in me is looking for the lesson. I do think of things, like how the tiniest branches are the tender new growth, hidden the rest of the year under the tree’s leafy glory — and yet indeed, a great part of that leafy glory.

I think of how very fragile these little spidery veins of wooden life appear, how they are exposed to icy air and storm; yet survive to grow another year. They are stronger than they look. Of course, they have the joy of living closest to the light and warmth of the sun.

I have no big lesson for you, save this: when a new awareness comes, when I have new eyes to see my world, I know the Holy Spirit is at work within me. The Lord has quietly awakened my soul to something he made, something he loves and delights in. When I look in wonder upon the capillary beauty of the trees, thrilling me for no good reason, I am gazing at it with my creator and theirs. Unbidden, he has changed my perspective and enabled me to share his joy; he just couldn’t let me go another winter feeling sad about something he has no sadness for. It is sharing life with God, a sign of his living in me, gentle, powerful, mysteriously quiet so much of the time. In this simple act he has spoken to me many things without saying a single word.

Ponder with me and write to me of your thoughts.

By Tonia in Knowing God .::.

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January 15th, 2010

A Satisfied Heart

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12, NIV.

Anyone who knows me through friendship, teaching, counseling or books, knows that my experience of God has been measured from the beginning by His ability to satisfy my heart. I learned early on that God doesn’t provide a charmed, perfect life; but He does offer in friendship and fatherhood and kingship everything my heart needs. He doesn’t promise to remove every enemy, but he does set a table before me even in their presence, undaunted, faithful, able.

My confidence in God’s ability to satisfy my heart arose from simply reading the Psalms and Proverbs for each morning’s devotions, where the language of this truth lurks around every page.

Consider a few excerpts from Psalm 62 and 63; first, an instruction to oneself and others: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him….Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”

Being satisfied by God requires two things. First, one must believe that he can and will satisfy the heart; and two, bringing every need of the heart to him, offering him the opportunity to do so. This requires refusing to turn to other things and people to meet these needs — which is usually futile anyway — and turning your face to the Father in trust.

The needs I speak of are more difficult to reach than needing rent money or a new job. The needs I have taken to my Father are the need to be satisfied in my longing for justice when I have been treated unjustly; to be understood when misunderstood; to be heard when no one else is listening; to find rest for my heart in a storm of unruly emotions; to have fullness of heart while waiting for God or others to come with what has been promised.

Returning to Psalms 62 and 63 we find this declaration: “My soul finds rest in God alone.” It teaches us the greatest lesson: that cultivating a longing for God himself is the sure path to a heart that lives full:

“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water….I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.”

In the deepest places where there aren’t even words to describe my need, God pours his life into my cup. As a daughter of Eve I have learned from her mistake; my goal is to never run to the tree of knowledge of good and evil to satisfy myself. And I refuse to listen to the devil’s lies, that God may be holding out on me or that he is unable or unwilling to give me His best.

I learned from the beginning that God can, and will, love me better than I can love myself. Jesus Christ is my tree of life, and his fruit is never deceptive. It never looks good in the hand and disappoints in the mouth — though the opposite may be true on occasion — it may be disappointing to the eye and taste like heaven.

May the Lord satisfy your heart in every way, and set you free of the neediness that makes you a beggar in body, soul or spirit. May the expectation that he will fill you up overtake every fear or false religion notion about God’s motives and responses to you. May the Holy Spirit stir in you a deeper hunger for the Lord himself, whose love tastes better than the richest chocolate cheesecake!

By Tonia in A Satisfied Heart .::.

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November 7th, 2009

A Fast from Self-ishness

Do you remember those parental scoldings that turned into lectures — where all you could do was get comfortable and endure while Mom or Dad went on and on in an attempt to get something through your “thick skull”? These usually came because our repeated behavior revealed we just really didn’t get it, whatever “it” was. Our Father God occasionally launches into one of those; as exhibit number one (can you tell I once was a legal secretary?) I offer Isaiah 58.
Isaiah 58 is a lecture intended to help us “get it” about God’s true values and purposes for fasting, explaining how easy it is to miss his heart altogether in our religious-ness.
A common theme of God’s lectures is how his people turn the festivals, disciplines and acts of worship he prescribed into self-serving rituals instead of pathways to greater love and life with Him and others.
I write in my Bible. After reading a section, I lay the Bible down, sit back and ponder, “What did God just reveal to me about himself?” When the answer comes, I make a note somewhere, either in my Bible study journal or in the margin of the Scriptures, so that a truth about God connects forever in my mind with that section of scripture. Frankly, I’m terrible at memorizing scripture, so this helps me internalize God’s truths in a way that stays with me.
The truth that lives in my heart, and the subtitle I have written for Isaiah 58 is that God meant fasting to be, above all, a fast from selfishness, a turning away from complete pre-occupation with my comfort and even my spiritual performance, so I may know my God, understand His will, and carry out His work of loving people to life. When I fast from business as usual in order to know him, I do something far better than deny myself: I forget myself. In forgetting myself, I can see and hear him more clearly.
A.W. Tozer shared in his most excellent book “The Pursuit of God,” his theory of why Christians, for whom the great veil separating men from God has been torn down, still seem unable to see and know their God. He believes that a veil remains which blinds us to the truth about God, a veil that he describes as “the close-woven veil of the self-life,” woven of the fine threads of what he calls the “hyphenated sins of the human spirit,” such as self-reliance, self-righteousness, self-pity and self-love. These are the things which blind us to God’s true purpose in asking us to deny ourselves and other acts of worship. They often pervert those acts of worship into lifeless religious ritual. Personally, I think God hates religion.
Our Father’s rant in Isaiah 58 greatly validates Tozer’s theory, making it clear that he is not at all pleased with the self-serving “Look at how I deny myself” type of fasting that demands a reward from God while simultaneously failing to effectively love and serve others. My personal conclusion to Tozer’s theory and God’s words is that God’s preferred way to destroy the veil of self is not for you to to make a show of denying yourself, putting yourself on your own cross, but to be so busy loving God and others that self dies while you’re not looking. And he promises in Isaiah 58 that if you will fast in such a way, he will provide you with all the healing and blessing you could ever desire. Get it now?

By Tonia in Knowing God .::.

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October 28th, 2009

Sightings of the King

I have a confession to make; I am co-dependent. I start going wonky if I don’t experience the nearness of my Lord. Tho I know He is with me always, I much prefer the times when I sense his closeness and hear his voice, or even catch a glimpse of him with the eyes of my heart. If these ways of knowing God go away for while, I begin to self-examine — what did I do, or not do, that caused the Lord to withdraw from me?

In faith I know the Lord and I are joined in our spirits forever, so when I use the word “withdraw” I do it in the context of intimate relationship. Even though my husband and I are together most of every day, on occasion he seems withdrawn from me, either because he is focused deeply on something else, or perhaps I have offended or neglected him. Withdrawal is a subtle signal in relationship to step closer to the beloved and discover what may be amiss in how we are loving.

I had not been consistently attentive to the Lord in recent weeks; maybe that was the problem. I also felt a nagging concern that perhaps I have become too familiar in my easy intimacy, neglecting to show God the reverence he is due. So, in a renewed effort to worship him appropriately, I had returned to a more formal prayer posture: kneeling in reverence, using my imagination to “see” my Lord on his throne, and worship him as the King and Sovereign Lord. However, my more formal prayers, confessions and blessings did not change the space between us. I said to myself, “God will not be manipulated, and in his sovereignty reserves the right to manifest his presence whenever and however he pleases;” but when this little self-lecture did nothing to soothe my raw neediness, I cried out, “Lord, please open my eyes to see you again!”

The next day, in worship at church, I suddenly saw him, unexpectedly, clearly; and when I saw him, I instantly understood the source of my blindness. For he was sitting on a low stool, in a humble house, surrounded by the hungry, the needy, the weak, the ignorant — he teaching, sharing his heart. He paused to look up at me across the room, and smiled an invitation to come near. I wept for joy, and my heart said, “of course.” I had been looking too high.

It is an old familiar, religious rut I fall into at times, especially after a spell of relative unfaithfulness, this trying to reconnect through the high worship of a low subject to a high sovereign. Appropriate as that may be, my Lord, the King of Graciousness has invited me to know him in my low estate, to draw near and be familiar, to know him.

Without question God is worthy of the highest reverence. As a worshipper who wants to be found true, I want to keep in full view the majesty AND the tender Fatherhood of God, the Lordship AND the Brotherhood of Jesus. I saw that I had only increased the perceived distance between us by looking for Christ on his throne rather than where he wanted to be found by me, the teacher close by. I remembered then also that I had felt him drawing me to read my Bible more and more, to meet with him there, but the spirit of religion had kept whispering in my ear, “That’s not enough.”

God has given himself to me — forever, still, continually. I have a fresh reminder that in seeking the Lord I must discover where he is, not go looking where I religiously assume he will be. Also, I must be faithful for the sake of loving Him well, not in order to manipulate him. He is a living person, not a deity I presume upon through religious ritual, obliged to bless me because I did the right stuff. He has invited me to something infinitely more precious and free and satisfying, yet available only when the heart is fully surrendered to letting God be God and receiving him as he chooses to come. This is how Supreme Lordship and Gracious Love get perfectly all sorted out for us.

By Tonia in Knowing God .::.

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October 26th, 2009

The Joy of Cooking

Okay, this blog is supposed to be about SPIRITUAL things. But what my heart is bursting to share is my new love affair with one of God’s greater creations, the humble, divine, onion-meets-garlic SHALLOT.

One of the benefits of working from a home office is that you can break from cerebral tasks to play with food. One can make a delightful egg sandwich or grab some raw veggies with dip and a slice of cheese; and on occasion, create a special lunch. Today was such a day. And just to make sure I properly connect the dots here with my spiritual blog ambitions, allow me to say, with all seriousness, that I consider creative pursuits to be the highest of spiritual activities, as we are made in the image of the great creator, who not only exercised his great creativity at every turn, but DELIGHTED in it.
Today was that kind of lunch for me. But it was, I must admit, premeditated. Here’s why. I’ve been thinking about shallots for a very long time. I use lots of onions and garlic in my cooking. I’d long heard of shallots, described as a mild onion that really leans towards more of a garlic flavor. I was in love at first description. However, they are, compared to onions or garlic, a little pricey, so I kept leaving them at the market, until recently. My 59th birthday staring me in the face, I thought, “Live what you love, woman, or miss your opportunity. I already loved shallots in my mind, and I wanted to know if I loved them on my tongue. So I bought four lovely shallots for an exhorbitant price at our local exotic market, took them home and proceeded to research recipes for how to use them best.

One of my favorite cookbooks is the perennially useful “Joy of Cooking.” It yielded a shallot recipe I chose to be my first, a beef condiment called Bercy Butter. This consists of finely chopped shallots simmered in dry white wine, reduced down and added to butter into which one has stirred some finely chopped parsley and a tad of salt. Bercy Butter, it says, is a perfect accompaniment to grilled steaks.

One of my husband’s delights is to discover a great steak, chop or chicken breast in the discount pile at the market, something divine at a deeply discounted price, because the date is expiring but the food hasn’t yet…. His latest find was a couple of fat sirloin steaks. He announced on Sunday he would cook them on the GRILL for Monday’s lunch, and all my casino slots lined up bing, bing, bing with shallots, parsley, white wine and butter, which I had carefully purchased and had waiting in my pantry for the moment of opportunity. Whatever else I was doing on Monday (writing, counseling, web page updates, correspondence), I would pause at noon and CREATE with SHALLOTS.

I must digress here and say that my muse for waxing on about all of this has been a delightful birthday gift I received from my daughter Gabriele, who has a knack for just the right gift, who sent me a copy of “The Supper of the Lamb” by Robert Farrar Capon, a really unorthodox cookbook by an unorthodox Episcopalian priest turned writer and chef. His introduction to the lowly onion is a spiritual experience if there ever was one. So his spirit is definitely messing with mine while I’m dreaming of shallots and parsley butter, all of which have never ever met in my kitchen.

It is a good thing I like being my own sous chef. I do love a very sharp knife, I love chopping things just the right size, I love my big fat cutting board left behind by a mother who loved cooking and did everything with gusto, and I just love playing with food.

But the question is: would I really like the Bercy Butter? Would my husband Ron, who has endured many a culinary experiment in our 28 years (“Please Honey, please don’t try a new recipe when company is coming!”) Well, it’s Monday, it’s just the two of us, and my shallots are waiting to fulfill their destiny (I’m working in all the spiritual connections I can, folks!). There have been some disasters, some things that made one laugh till one cried, and others that just made one cry. Even so, most failures seldom outstrip the joy factor of trying a new thing with food and flavor.

Here’s the verdict: Bercy Butter turns an ordinary steak into something extraordinary, and hubby loved it! Ah, my first culinary turn with shallots, and it is love at first bite. And it was a great fun lunch, a very satisfying moment in the middle of my day, and left me delighting anew in a God who did not settle for making garlic and onions.

By Tonia in It Was Good (Food) .::.

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October 19th, 2009

God has filled your hands

“…Aaron’s sons, the anointed priests, who were ordained to serve as priests…” (Numbers 3:3, NIV). The word “ordained” (some translations say “consecrate”) is translated from two Hebrew words which together mean, “to fill the hand.”
On the surface this is likely a metaphor for the act of pouring anointing oil on the one being ordained. The deeper truth is that the act of ordination or consecration — being set apart in one’s calling before God — invested one with both authority and ability to fulfill their calling. In other words, God fills the hands of those he sets apart for himself.
As 1st Peter 2:9 reveals, the born-again children of God are now His royal priesthood. As covenant children of God we have authority through the name of Jesus to do what Jesus did, AND we have something to give in His name — our hands have been filled with something to offer others. It is valuable, it is real, it is empowered by His Spirit. We are NOT empty-handed!

By Tonia in Notes on "Numbers" .::.

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October 16th, 2009

Freedom

God is into freedom, especially where his children are concerned. I have often experienced Him more easily through spontaneous encounters — on a walk, in the shower, musing over my morning cup of sweet black tea — than in times of disciplined prayer. In the beginning, it felt so — illegal. Could I really trust the sense of hearing his voice or feeling his affectionate closeness when I had done nothing special? The idea dawned slowly upon me…how preposterous to think that God never speaks unless spoken to first, or hides himself from his children unless they approach him in a ritual!

“It is for freedom that Christ has set you free…” as it says in Galatians 5:1. I’ve learned that the Lord particularly enjoys sharing my pleasure in bubble baths, long walks to enjoy his creation, doing creative food things in the kitchen, listening to music that makes my heart joy or my spirit mellow. While not taking away one tittle of how important discipline is in prayer, I rejoice in the freedom of knowing God easily in the mundane moments of life. As one of my beloved teachers has so wisely said, we need to stop making a distinction between the sacred and the secular, because God never does.

Discipline is good, but freedom is better, if that freedom is a celebration of a living relationship between two people who live for one another.

By Tonia in Knowing God .::.

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October 12th, 2009

Why I ScribeLife

The Lord of all Creation has made me a teacher, a writer, and a witness to his awesome love and goodness. Every morning when I sit with the Lord, I enjoy things with him that I long to share with the world, in hopes that someone out there wondering about God will be encouraged to seek Him. Please, please do. You will not be disappointed.

I have been enjoying the love and Fatherhood of God since 1979, so I do not write out of the blush of first love, but in the midst of a journey undertaken long ago. I write to share what I know of God personally — and inevitably teach along the way. I don’t know God perfectly, perhaps not even well compared to some, but what I do know of Him is too wonderful to keep to myself. He is good; relentlessly good, and his love is the most satisfying thing in the world.

How have I come to know God? I’ve been brought into a covenant relationship with God through the self-sacrifice of Jesus, his Son. What the world calls salvation is actually a covenant offered, an invitation to be joined with Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a never-ending relationship of love and faithfulness. In this covenant God has given everything to make it possible for me to know him, to be a personal witness of his character, wisdom and power.

My job in this covenant is to be a faithful lover and witness to who this amazing God is, revealing an invisible God to a world who does not have eyes to see Him. This is my glimpse of His Glory. May it always be faithful to Him. Like my brother John, who leaned against the bosom of Jesus at the table, I write these things to make my joy complete, and in hopes that you too will seek the fellowship of the Father and the Son.

By Tonia in God's covenant .::.

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September 15th, 2009

Parable of the Topsy Turvy Tomato

Advertising works. Thus we tried the Topsy Turvy Tomato planter this year, that novel invention where your planter hangs up high to avoid all weed pulling and thwart the cutworms and promising a great crop thereby. We bought the planter, carefully chose a “Better Bush” tomato plant, and assembling all, hung it by our front porch with care. Here is our harvest:

This beauty is it. One solitary, lovely tomato. Indeed, pulled no weeds, warred with no cutworms…ONE beautiful tomato. We made a ceremony out of harvesting it; no careless swift plucking of this baby! And now it is in the house, awaiting its purpose, still commanding reverence. Even while it seems silly to me, inescapably, I don’t want to make this decision lightly, because we only got ONE. What to do with it? Shall I drizzle olive oil on it, top it with basil? Shall I have the Grillmeister (Ron) put it on the grill with some other summer veggies? Shall I use it for a crown on our dinner salads? Shall I just cut it open and eat it out of hand? How to consume the life of my one home-grown, topsy turvy tomato?

And being the Bible teacher that I am, designed by God to search for and reveal His lesson in EVERYTHING, I’m pondering not just the tomato’s fate, but my own reaction to it. If there had been 10 tomatoes, or five, or even two, I don’t believe this dilemma would be upon me, and this tomato would seem ordinary, lost in the crowd, probably down my gullet by now. But no, its solitary uniqueness has caused it to become sort of holy in my sight; I feel a responsibility to use to its very best potential. And, get ready for it….. Does God the creator face this same wonderment of possibility and purpose regarding each one of his uniquely created individuals?

By Tonia in It Was Good (Food) .::.

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