June Caedmon's Blog, page 5

Mute

I’ve been silent in this space of late. To be honest, the events of the summer, both in the world and at home have made me want to escape.

Cozy Mysteries are my newest vice.

Not just for the escape, I’ve discovered a couple of authors who take the time to develop their characters and their environment. Authors who know how to write into their stories the beauty that ultimately sustains us when we meet the hard things in life. Like murder. Like a worldwide pandemic and global suffering. Like broken families and the consequences of poor choices.

“Consequences of poor choices” – that’s me trying to be polite.

Let’s just call it what it is: the consequences of sin.

My social media feeds are overwhelmed with people who are crying out, figuratively and literally. Sometimes it’s just all too much. Especially for those of us who tend to be more “sensitive”. (Any other Enneagram 9’s out there?)

In these days of great personal and public tragedy, in a time when the chaos of the world easily seeps into our most sacred places and the earth herself buckles under the strain, my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. My mind is awhirl with images and emotions that won’t submit to elocution.

The Holy Spirit is truly our Helper in these times of despair. Not only does He make intercession for us, ‘with groanings which cannot be uttered’ but He reminds us of the Word, which is our very Bread of Life and Living Water.

It is the Holy Spirit who directs us to Beauty. Not just in the person of Jesus Christ. But in all He has created. (Col 1:15-17) His divine work has the power to reorient our souls to the truth. Perhaps that is why when Jesus speaks to us about worry He points us to the birds of the air and the lilies in the field.  (Luke 12:22-31) The beauty of creation directs us back to the heart of the Creator.

Even the beauty we create has in it the power of the divine. Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, Always a Guest, says, “When we put something beautiful into the world, it is Genesis all over again. We are engaged in divine work.”

Sheila Atchley coined a phrase over a year ago that, along with Micah 6:8, has become the anthem of my whispered life: Beauty Defies Despair

Because while escaping reality may be tempting right now, that is not the life we are called to in Christ Jesus. Rather, we are are called to be Light in the darkness.

The very act of pursuing beauty ignites a spark.

Now, more than ever before in our lifetimes, is the time to fling beauty far and wide. To engage in the divine work! Whatever gifts He has given you, now is the time to use them. Plug your spiritual umbilical cord into the Holy Spirit and get down to business!

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

We cannot survive these days without His help.

The Sound of Silence

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake.

Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.”  Mark 13:32‭-‬37 ESV

For someone who has a strong  dislike of close spaces I’ve found myself, more than once, descending into darkness.  One particular cave, near the Grand Canyon stands apart for one notable distinction: the silence.

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake.

After hurtling downward who knows how many hundreds of feet in a rickety old mining elevator we emerged into an enormous cavern about the length of a football field. Unlike other caves I had visited, this one was a dry cavern and lacked the trademark stalagmites and stalactites.

About halfway through our 45 minute tour the guide turned off the lights. Absolute darkness. And something else. Complete silence. You could feel the weight of it. Like the comfort of a heavy blanket. No water dripping. Not a rustle or a hint of noise.

Then people shifted and starting breathing again. But for one blessed moment.

Silence.

It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the sound of silence. Even here on my front porch, a quarter mile from the road, the traffic noise is raucous. Over time I’ve learned to tune it out. Now when I sit among my flowers my ears automatically attune to the sounds of birds, the breeze dancing through the leaves of the tallow tree, and even the bees, productively collecting pollen from the mealy sage.

I happily hear the things that matter. And pay no mind to the things that don’t. If we can learn do this with our ears, we must also learn to do it with our spirit. When Jesus commands us to stay awake, He is not referring to a lack of slumber. He is telling us to keep our spiritual eyes and ears open to the things of God.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 2:7 NKJV

Even as we go about the work that He has for us to do, we must learn to attend to the sound of His return.

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41‭-‬42 NKJV

In that singular moment, just before He appears, I imagine it might be like that silence in that cave.  And then we’ll be soaring! The sound of rushing water enveloping us as our spirits lift, meeting Him for the final time.

Always and forever with our Lord.

Lord of the Sabbath

Even a quick perusal of the OT scriptures will reveal that God takes the Sabbath day very seriously.

“Thus says the Lord: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.” Jer 17:21 ESV

“Whoever does any work on the Sabbath shall be put to death.” Exodus 31:15

But what the Pharisees took to the extreme in the form of legalism, which led them to “obstinate stupidity” and we often take to the opposite extreme of  impertinence, is actually a day intended for our benefit.

Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath: so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)

God created man first. Then, “having finished all His work, God blessed the day and made it holy,” (Gen 1:2-3)

God set aside this day for our benefit, not as another task or burden or another check box on our To Do list.

God’s ultimate desire is that we know Him and love Him. He knows that we spend most of our lives caught up in the business of the world. Therefore, it is critical to our well-being, both spiritual and physical that we have a time of rest. A day to commune with Him. A day of praise and thanksgiving. A day to cease striving and simply know.

More than any other act, Jesus’ healing on the sabbath enraged the Pharisees. These men, who would not hesitate to pull their oxen out of ditch on the sabbath, despised Jesus for healing people of their afflictions on the sabbath day.  (Mark 3:4-6)

Jesus knew this, and yet He made a point to do these things on the Sabbath.

I think one reason is that the Sabbath is for healing. Our spirits find freedom, refreshment, and healing in one place only: in the arms of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

This world is a dangerous place. We are hard pressed, bewildered, persecuted, struck down, afflicted. (2Cor 4:8) But there remains a sabbath rest for His people. (Heb 4:9)

Sunday may be the busiest day of the week for you. And that’s okay. It’s not about Sunday. It’s about Sabbath.

Make every effort to enter His rest.

Come boldly, come often, come… to the throne of grace, in order that we may receive mercy and find grace to give us timely help.

It Is Not Nothing

I think we forget that Jesus and John the Baptist were family. Scripture doesn’t give us any indication of how much time they spent together as children, if any at all. But we do know this, when Jesus heard that John had been killed He, “withdrew privately by boat to a remote place;” (Matt 14:13)

We can only guess what Jesus was feeling over the loss of this man who had baptized Him and prepared the way for His ministry on earth. Whatever He was feeling, Jesus sought the Lord in prayer.

However, He was almost immediately interrupted. And if we can relate to nothing else in this passage of scripture, we can relate to this: When we are faced with difficulty, suffering or mind-numbing grief and all we want to do is slip away and pray, or perhaps lick our wounds, often we cannot.

Instead, there is often a work for us to do, the needs of others to attend to, and so on. Here we can take a lesson from our Lord.

What was the interruption Jesus experienced here in Matthew fourteen? Scripture tells us He was overtaken by the crowds. Tired, hungry, and far from home, they looked to Him. And He fed them. Five thousand of them. With ‘all they had’ – five loaves and two fish.

Jesus didn’t turn them away because He was grieving and, perhaps, even angry about what had happened to John. No doubt, He longed to be with His Father, but first He had work to do.

I’m reminded, and helped, by something Bryanna Joy wrote in her June Letters from the Sea Tower:

“Finding it impossible to do what she would, she did what she could – and it was not nothing.”

Bryanna is writing here about Beatrix Potter, whose life, like most ours, did not go as she had hoped and planned.

I wonder, how many of us have given up on our prayer life or quiet time because we’ve been interrupted one too many times? How many of us have given up on that dream because the needs of others has had to come first?

Perhaps verse twenty-two and following may help us to get back on track:

“As soon as they had finished, He made the disciples embark and cross to the other side ahead of Him, while He dismissed the crowd; then He went up the hill by Himself to pray. It had grown late, and He was there alone.”

Maybe it has grown late for you, Beloved. But it is not too late. When the work is finished and the needs have been met, He will meet us there. Alone.

In the meantime, let us do what we can with ‘all we have’.

For it is not nothing.

A Word Spoken

We’ve all experienced the power that words can have on a person, even on a community and a culture.
A kind word, a word spoken in encouragement, can have a profound and life giving affect on a person.
But words can also be used to harm, control, and confuse.

Back in the ’90’s when email really started to take off we had to learn to communicate using the written word in a whole new way. Suddenly, we were having conversations without speaking face-to-face or through an audio device. We no longer heard the tone, saw the facial expressions or body language of our colleagues and friends.

My boss at the time used to say, “Words are tricky.”

In the written word we use descriptive devices to capture this for the Reader, for example:

“‘You lost no time in claiming Heber’s birthright.’ There was no condemnation in her voice, just resignation.”

Without the sentence in bold you would most likely assume the person speaking disapproved and was being judgmental.

But we don’t write an email (and certainly not a text) the way we write a book.

Without the benefit of tone of voice and expression in a conversation, words can easily be construed and misunderstood. Back in the ’90’s I learned to navigate this in a business new to the world of emailing, and today I see it all the time as I read through comments on social media. “That’s not what I meant…” is a common defense claimed when someone’s words are misunderstood.

Yes, words are tricky. And few take the time to think and to carefully chose their words before they send them out into the world.

Words are a powerful weapon, for good or ill. Yet for all the power our words have, they cannot create something from nothing.

Only God can speak something into being.

“God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

“God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures,’ So it was.”

The Word of God, spoken, prayed, read aloud, is more powerful than the un-inspired word of man.

“God’s word is alive and working. It is sharper than the sharpest sword and cuts all the way into us. It cuts deep to the place where the soul and the spirit are joined. God’s word cuts to the center of our joints and our bones. It judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts.” (Heb 4:12)

To the unbeliever, God’s word may be simply history, story or a list of dos and don’ts. But to the one changed forever by the blood of the cross and indwelt by the Holy Spirit it is God’s voice in an ever-flowing dialogue between the Creator and the created. The Holy Spirit is the conduit  between our heart and God’s.

Knowing this, perhaps we should be more gracious than defensive when non-believers scoff or challenge God’s word. After all, God certainly doesn’t need us to defend Him. God simply calls us to share His word and our part of HIStory. By doing so we stand against those antagonistic to biblical truth in a way that glorifies God.

If you are one who reads the Bible and hears it as merely story and history, I encourage you to keep reading. Especially, these passages: Romans 3:23; 6:23; 5:8; 1 Peter 3:18; 2 Cor 5:21; Romans 10:9-10; Eph 2:8-9; 1 John 1:9-10; which can, as all scripture can, make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Words may be tricky, but God promises that His word will accomplish its purposes.  “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11 NKJV

I encourage you to stand on His promise.

It Began In A Garden

I’ve been thinking about the different ways God comes to us.

It began in a garden. With us walking by His side while the dew was still on the roses. Can you imagine the scene. The feeling of complete and unconditional love from our Creator. For once being truly safe. Heart, mind, body, and soul.

Creation was God’s first gift to us. He designed it to speak to us about Him. It still does. Which may be why man continues to seek to destroy it.

For a long time after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit God did not dwell with man.
Then He came to them again as an all-consuming fire. He revealed His glory and His greatness. The people were afraid to come near. They rejected Him and, once again, for a long time God did not dwell with man.

Then, because of His great love for us, He sent His beloved Son. He came gentle and helpless, as a baby. He grew to manhood, and the disciples walked with Jesus and knew His unconditional love and acceptance.

Once again, man despised and rejected Him. But this time God’s departure wasn’t about judgment, it was about justification.

Jesus’ death on the cross made it possible for us to, once again, walk daily in His presence.

Today, we can experience both His unconditional love (grace) and His all-consuming fire (the Holy Spirit). We can walk with Him every moment of our lives.

This is how He comes to those who seek Him now. Won’t you join me in the garden?

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” (Heb 8:10)

Where We Go Wrong

And you said: ‘Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man; yet he still lives. Now therefore, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore, then we shall die. For who is  there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? You go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say, and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you, and we will hear and do it. ’Deuteronomy 5:24‭-‬27 NKJV (c.f. Exodus 20:18,19)

I wonder if this is where we began to go wrong.

In this passage, Moses is reminding the Israelites of when they asked for a mediator between themselves and God.

There was no question of belief. The Israelites had seen God’s glory and greatness firsthand. They had even heard His voice. But they were afraid of Him. Not in a reverent sense, but rather they were afraid in the sense that they thought God would do them harm. The feared being in His presence.

And so they asked Moses to, ‘go near and hear all that the Lord our God may say, and tell us all that the Lord our God says to you, and we will hear and do it.’

Although God allows it at the time, and even says it is ‘good’, it was clearly not the relationship He desired to have with His chosen people.

It was always God’s intention that we should walk with Him. Personally. One on one. As Adam and Eve did in the garden. 

But God has never been enough for us.

Rather than God, we wanted knowledge, then a man, then a king, and on it went… on it goes. We build cities, and walls, and all manner of distractions and denials to keep us from His consuming fire.

But His consuming fire is the one thing we truly need. The only thing that will truly save us.

God knows this, of course. When we read the Old Testament stories we shouldn’t be deceived into thinking any of it took God by surprise. Just as the chapters in our stories don’t take Him by surprise.

He gave man the knowledge he asked for; to know both good and evil. He gave the Israelites their man: Moses, and their king: Saul.

And all the while He knew that these things would not satisfy and those men would fail. The truth is: the spirit of man will never be satisfied until it is cleansed of sin and replaced with the Spirit of God.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Eze 35:25

God accomplished this through Jesus Christ.

“For Christ, also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” 1 Peter 3:18

His sacrifice makes it possible for us to receive this new spirit and new heart. To be cleansed.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.” 2 Cor 5:17

God is calling you back to the garden. Back to a one-on-one relationship with Himself.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Rev 3:20)

Take His hand. Open the door.

And be free to love again.

Inspired by . . . I remember

Inspired by . . . I remember

In my mind, where memories reside, lilacs are forever linked to parades and the American flag.
In all the best places this weekend, lilacs are blooming. And in many towns, but not enough, there are parades and ceremonies being held to honor the soldiers who gave their lives, in one way or another, for our freedoms.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The freedom to have an opinion, and speak it without fear. Even if that opinion is against the very soldiers who died or holds our flag in contempt.

It's a strange, awful, and wonderful world we live in.


Memorial Day is far more important to any of us than we are likely to acknowledge.

As with most things that deal with life and death, our consciousness will only skim the surface of the depth of meaning of what this day truly memorializes.

Few of us have been close enough to the sacrifice to understand.

For those of you who are, you have my gratitude and my prayers.

To those who have made the sacrifice; I honor them by remembering.

Blessings on your Memorial Day,

By the Power of the Spirit

The magic of the Holy Spirit is the immediate and on-going change that happens when, at the moment of salvation, He invades our spirit.

The disciples were the first to experience this miracle.  And it was only once they received the gift of the Spirit that they were able to obey the last visibly audible command of Christ.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will bear witness for Me in Jerusalem, and throughout all Judea and Samaria, and even in the farthest corners of the earth.” Acts 1:8

These men who consistently missed the point of Jesus’ earthly teachings had been instructed to take His teachings to the ends of the earth. They were expected to correct misconceptions and stand boldly, even to the point of death, on the Truth of the Gospel.

How could they possibly succeed on their own? The answer is: they couldn’t.  Jesus knew this. That is why He announces the gift, the power, before He issues the command.

Once they received the Spirit (Acts 2) everything Jesus had told them during His earthly ministry became clear. The Holy Spirit reminded them of what they had already been taught.

“; the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have told you.” John 14:26

But the power and teaching of the Holy Spirit did not end there. The Spirit also taught and instructed the disciples about everything they needed to know to testify to the Truth.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come.” John 16:13

Without the Holy Spirit’s work the Gospel would never had spread throughout the world. The New Testament would never have been written.

“Scripture speaks of ‘things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love Him’; and these are what God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” 1 Cor 2:9

The Holy Spirit reminded, revealed, empowered, and inspired the Apostles to take the good news throughout the world and to write what we know as the New Testament scriptures.

And the magic continues today.

Inspired by . . . Celebrating 10 Years

Inspired by . . . Celebrating 10 Years - *G*I*V*E*A*W*A*Y*


Today's the day, friends!
I'm celebrating my ten-year (!) blog anniversary with a giveaway!

As a "thank you" to all of you who have followed me over the years, I'm giving away three sets of Bible study tools.

Three (3) winners will receive one (1) custom-designed notebook, one (1) Bible pens and highlighter set, and one (1) handcrafted keepsake box with scripture memory card set (approximate retail value: $45)

There are three ways to enter:
1. Scroll down and subscribe to my quarterly newsletter.2. Like and comment on my giveaway post on either Instagram or Facebook.3. Share my giveaway with a friend by tagging them in the comments on either Instagram or Facebook.

That's it! Three opportunities to enter!
The giveaway starts today and runs through Monday, May 31, 2021.

I'll be drawing three winners on June 1st and will announce the winners on Instagram and Facebook! I will also contact the winners via email if they have subscribed to my newsletter.

All the official rules are posted under the Giveaway tab here on my website.

Have fun!