Category: Gospel

Sometimes I don’t like God

Teresa Norman2 Comments

It was a shock last week, to admit to myself, that there’s times I don’t really like God.  Our C-Group (community group) was reading a bunch of passages out of Jeremiah as part of our One Year Through the Bible thing, and I was starting to get bummed.  As a Christian, I’ve always known I’m supposed to love, honor, fear, reverence, worship, obey and respect God.  But I had to admit, reading some of the verses about the times God said and declared awful catastrophes for all kinds of people-it seemed so random and unfair! Where’s the justice in all that?  Still, I was pondering this with a little a bit of emotional distance left….until Wednesday.

Tuesday morning, our beautiful little new grandson, Austin, made his entrance into the world.  Strawberry blond, crying, wiggling….all those cute little newborn things.  I was privileged to be there to watch the miracle of new life as he made his entrance and to rejoice that even with all the unexplainable ##*#* going on in the world, God still seems to be in favor of life.  Things were good, and the gratitude level was high, even though there was this nagging question about whether or not it was blasphemy to admit I had some issues with Jeremiah.

Wednesday morning at 4:40 a.m., our daughter called to say their  precious little guy had just been airlifted to a city hospital in severe respiratory distress.  My voice and my words told her we’d be there as soon as we could catch a ferry to pick her up and bring her over to the little man (her husband drove ahead to meet the chopper but she had to wait for the doctor’s to come in and release her).  My heart, however, did a quick trip back to Jeremiah and the God who isn’t always very nice and prayed (begged) with all sincerity, that He would be the nice, kind, loving, life-giving God this time to this one little family who has waited and longed to meet this precious little guy we’ve all already loved for nine months and one day.

Pulling my head and my heart out of maternal/infant mortality statistics I’ve read and focusing on what was instinctual, needed and helpful, my inventory of my available faith level at that point was on empty.  So, I texted some people I knew would wake up, see their messages and pray.  Then we got out of here and went to be with the Mommy.

At the hospital, while we waited for doctors to show up, get out of meetings, and get Mommy on her way, I used Facebook to put the word out to pray. People who don’t even know our daughter and her truly wonderful husband responded and there were prayers going up for this little man, and people sending words of encouragement and hope.  Thank you!!!!!

As much as I would like to pretend that I was full of faith and knew God was gonna make things Ok, I wasn’t and I didn’t.  I was AFRAID that maybe, like so many other people in so many other places who live with loss and disaster each day that has no explanation, that this little family might have to experience that because God was doing something else.  Gratefully, my fears did not materialize and Austin’s doing much much much much better….

Lesson learned:

  1. There are times when your tank is empty, and that’s when the prayers of others who aren’t on empty can help carry you, if you just ask.
  2. The community of  faith will respond if asked and their prayers may touch God’s heart, and keep yours from breaking.
  3. Pray.  Ask others to pray.  Pray some more.
  4. You don’t have to go through it alone….ask for help!  Others can believe even when you can’t.
  5. Don’t forget to give thanks, regularly, privately, publicly and every other way as a matter of habit and discipline.
  6. Maybe, for now, I’m gonna focus on gratitude, and quit reading the Jeremiah sections (one of our amazing friends-a spiritually wise lady I really respect, said there was a time in her life where she couldn’t do a bunch of Psalms at once-they were too violent, and the priest just told her to pick a different reading….God bless him!)

To the two or three people who might read this, thank you.  To all those who prayed for Austin and his family, THANK YOU SO SOSOSOSOSOSOSO MUCH!

Maybe there are times when the fear of God takes precedence over the love of God….and maybe whether or not I LIKE Him is irrelevant?

(PS  I printed out the six pages of comments and prayers ya’all put on Facebook for Austin and his family and gave it to his Mommy and Daddy for his baby book)

Reality Check–Cyber Psalm 15

Teresa Norman1 Comment

Our friend, Dan, had a heart attack this week.  Scary.  So that made it doubly cool to get a perspective challenging email from him this morning with this Cyber Psalm from a blog he likes by David Ker, a Wcliffe Bible Translator in Mozambique.   

Cyber-Psalm 15

 NOVEMBER 23, 2007                                                                   by David Ker

What would heaven be like

if books of theology 
were written by children not men?

And what if sermons were delivered by the poor. 


And devotional books were written by the hungry. 


And hymns were composed by the sick and the old.

The Sermon on the Mount requires no interpretation, 


unless you are fat and happy.

If our hope of heaven were colored 


with children’s crayons and felt tip markers.

And our theology of hell were tempered 


by the dying breath of those who suffer.

The hair-splitting and hand-wringing 


of over-educated men in ivory towers 


goes largely unnoticed by grandmothers in their kitchens 


and office workers in their cubicles.

They go on putting silly magnets on their fridge 


And trading forwarded e-mails about heaven. 


Two thousand years of systematic theology 


Disturbs them not a bit!

God is honored and praised  

Hoped for and prayed to 


By myriads who never learned Greek.

Their revelation is not a scroll  

But a hope vaguely imprinted 


On a soul made by God.

The sick and the blind and the poor  

Receive Jesus with gladness. 


The Gospels require no spiritualized application.

Feed us, friend Jesus. 
  

Our stomachs are empty.


You are the one our hearts hope for.

Heal us who are sick. 
    

We ache and we suffer.

Save us in death. 
    

We are dying in darkness. 


Savior Jesus, our hope at life’s end.

If We Are His Body…..

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It surprised me to see all the theological chatter when I tried to look up this poem.  In my simple way, I hadn’t seen this famous poem as being all that complicated.  Rather, I saw it as somewhat awe-inspiring and humbling that God would trust us with being “laborers together with Him” in the world….

 Christ Has No Body

“Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world….”

 Some of the theological chatter said it was blasphemy-that it implied that Christ didn’t ascend to heaven in a transformed body…..bla bla bla.  In my humble opinion, I don’t think the author was trying to yank someone’s chain.  I think she/he/they (there’s some debate on authorship) was trying to make a significant, complex, mind-boggling mystery real, tangible and practical to those of us without MDvs. 

A friend’s blog posed the question recently, “What are you praying for?”  I guess I am praying to recognize Christ in the many ways He shows up- not just in the Bible, or in church, but at work, in the grocery store, on the street, on the docks, at friend’s houses, in the people I meet each day.  I am praying to reflect to those He connects me with that their lives have value because He made them with a purpose and has plans for their good!  I am praying to learn to live out my faith in ways that reflect the miracle that God uses broken human beings to help make grace real.  I am praying that I will learn to be part of the solution and not the problem in the lives of those I am called to love….As I seek to be present in the moment with some friends facing difficult transitions, I pray above anything, “God, teach me to love.”

Global Day of Prayer for Burma

Teresa Norman1 Comment

Sunday, March 8th is the Global Day of Prayer for Burma.  

Pray:

  • For political prisoners.
  • For a political solution to the armed conflict.
  • For the pastors, who are often singled out and attacked by Burma army soldiers when they first enter a village.
  • For strength, wisdom, and hope among people of all faiths who live under direct control of the military dictatorship in Burma.  Pray that they will be unified and encouraged by their efforts to serve one another through love and perseverance.
  • For all of the parents who have lost their children due to the Burma army attacks.
  • For the children who suffer the most in the conflict.
  • For a change in the hearts of the Burma army soldiers and leaders.
  • For a political solution to the armed conflict.
  • For those in the areas still devastated by Cyclone Nargis.

Some of our friends from the Karen choir at the Karen church in Kent will be participating in the service at Quest on Sunday.  Below is a translation of the song they will be singing.  Please join them, and us, in praying for Burma.

My prayer

 Alone, I cannot walk the path without you Lord.

All is barren without your presence.

All life comes from you.

Strength comes from you.

Rest my heart

May I rest in you.

Let me know just one thing.

For all in heaven and earth

And my heart is yours.

Let me believe in just one thing

That you will never leave me

And where ever you place me, there you be.

Starfish tossing

Teresa Norman1 Comment

I don’t know where the story originally came from, but most of you have probably heard it….the one where the guy is running along a beach in the morning and he comes to part of the beach that’s covered with beached starfish.  There’s a little girl there picking up starfish and tossing them back in the sea.  The man questions her on what she’s doing, and tries to tell her she can’t save all of them-asks what difference she can make.  The little girl responds, as she throws in another one, “Made a difference to that one…..”  Being unqualified, uneducated, inexperienced, and doing too little, too late, with not enough, for too few seems a lot like that sometimes.  But to the one (or more!) that you do get to encourage, bless, walk beside, befriend, help feed, house, care for or educate by the actions you do, I got to believe it makes some kind of difference!  

In the words of St. Francis, “Preach the gospel.  If necessary, use words.”

Jesus is a refugee (poem)

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See the mother in the jungle, tiny baby in her arms,
Running from the soldiers who’ve come to rape and kill
She’s tired from the running, desperate, hungry, full of fear—
How can she know God loves her, and that He walks beside her there?

He is there beside her in the dark and in the cold.
He knows what she is feeling, in the Bible it is told
That He was once a refugee. His parents ran to save His life
From the soldiers sent to kill him in Herod’s infanticide.

The way that God has chosen to loose the bands of wickedness
To give bread to the hungry and to help free the oppressed
Calls us to walk beside her in our prayers and in our hearts:
As the body of Christ, the servant king, it makes her burden ours.

But words and prayers are not enough, no matter how well spoken
God’s love requires our presence so He can walk beside His children.
Even though we’re broken, we are His feet and hands.
We stand in need of grace to obey His commands.

Though she sits in darkness, He came to be the light.
Though she now is hungry, He is the bread of life.
Though we turn aside sometimes or don’t know what to do,
We are all called in some way to help her make it through.

He chose to entrust us with His reputation
And to make us His body throughout every nation
As a king become baby, He risked everything
Calling us to embody the love that He brings….

“I was hungry and you gave me bread
Thirsty and you gave me drink
A stranger and you took me in
In prison and you came to me….”
Lord, when did this happen?
His answer is quite clear
“When you did it for the least of these
It was for me, for I am there….”

“Where are your poor?” (poem)

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That was the question our friend Rigo, a Nicaraguan pastor, asked when he visited the US for the first time back in 2000.  Where he pastors, members of several warring drug gangs lay down their weapons outside and call a temporary truce before coming into church.  If they come to faith and leave the gangs, there are no jobs.  They cannot support their families.  Unemployment benefits do not exist.  Churches in North America helped raise money to help him start a woodshop where the guys can learn a marketable skill.  They have plans for other projects as well.  

 

“Where are your poor?” our honored guest said.

(I was humbled by his words.

His eyes had observed that our country is rich,

Richer even than what he had heard).

 

In his country many many are poor,

Much poorer than we’ll ever see.

His church gives away what little it has

Just trying to meet their needs.

 

We give a little while they give a lot

(Seems like the reverse should be true).

Forgive us, Lord, for failing to see

How many times we ignore You.

 

Give us hearts to see You, Lord,

In the hungry, poor and cold.

Give us hearts to gladly share

Our lives and the things we hold…

To value our brother

More than our comfort.

To know when we give, we receive,

And that we can never

      out-give Your provision—

Lord, help us live

     what we say we believe!

 

**************************

In Nicaragua, you see the poverty everywhere.  It is not invisible.  Here, it looks like even poor people are rich.  We try to hide our poverty.  But if you look closer, the poor are among us.  God, teach us.

Persistent Love

Teresa Norman1 Comment

Today I am celebrating the moment on Sept. 24, 1970 when my church youth group leader came and asked me for probably the 100th time, if I was willing to commit my life to Jesus, and surrender my options to continued self-direction and self-destruction.  Because of what had happened to her, I said yes.  We prayed together on the steps of the CMA church on a Friday night ’cause that’s where she found this hurting lost sheep.   The struggle then went from “Do I choose faith?”  to “How do I live out that faith?”  Huge step….saved my life.  

She had a unique place of credibility to me at that precise moment, having experienced loss of her beautiful 18 month old daughter just two weeks ago in a tragic accident.  I watched her in the midst of her struggle and loss and incredible pain as she chose to still turn towards God, and not, in the words of Job’s wife “curse God and die.”  If faith in Christ could help sustain her, then maybe, as she had said for so long, and so often, God is greater than we’ll ever know and His love is stronger than we can ever imagine.  I also know now, there are some answers to the “why?” questions that we’ll never get.   Grace became amazing that day as the journey towards life and hope began.

So, today, I am grateful.  I was not always a grateful child.  But today, I am grateful to her, and I am grateful to my Dad. 

What does this have to do with my Dad?  Well,  a few years ago, I was asked to come and sing on Father’s Day at the church he had attended for 75 years at that point.  I didn’t want to go. This was a  setting that held some really mixed blessings in my life, and held some memories I would rather forget, but for Dad I went.  And in the doing of the thing, I had one of those moments where the lights came on, and I realized that because my Dad had always taken me to church as a kid, even when he wasn’t sure he wanted to go, even when he wasn’t sure it made any difference, even when he didn’t think I was paying any attention, even when he was tired, or whatever other excuses hardworking grownups can come up with.  And even though the church was way imperfect, God’s Word was taught there, and God was present in the prayers of His people.  And because of this, there was someone in my life who could offer hope and point the way to faith, even when I might not have been listening to Dad.  For this, I am very grateful.

Justice or “just-us”?

Teresa Norman2 Comments

A friend recently challenged me to articulate what the most important issues to me are this election, and to explain why, as a Christian, I feel those issues are important.  Whew!  I confess to usually being somewhat politically lazy (not feeling like my vote makes any difference…not always doing the actions for responsible citizenship), but after watching friends from Burma who have attained citizenship in the US  demonstrate anew to me the PRIVILEGE I have of being a citizen and being able to have a voice and a vote, I repent.  

Decisions for me usually revolve around to trying to find the principle to base the action on.  The belief and principle that most impacts my coming vote is the firm belief that God calls us to seek justice, and that justice is not spelled “just-us.”  I believe I/we need to interact with the world, our society, our churches, our communities, and our families following the principles spoken of in Micah 6:8, “… What does the Lord require of you?  To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God,” and by Jesus in Matthew 7:12, “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you.”

I believe God is prolife.  Consistently pro-life…“pro everyone’s life,” not only the lives of the unborn (and their parents), and not only those who are demographically, economically, racially, culturally, or religiously most similar to us.  Putting my faith into practice might mean being more actively engaged trying to make sure human rights such as life, liberty, physical security, education, access to affordable medical care, food security, clean water, and affordable shelter become available to everyone.  I am convicted this is not optional.  

Equal access to education, jobs with a living wage, childcare and after school programs, are important to me.  Jesus said the gospel was supposed to be “good news for the poor.”  How do the economic policies we support affect those on the bottom of the economic ladder, both in the US and to those affected by our trade policies in other countries?  How do these policies affect children and families?

I agree with those who say we need to protect and strengthen marriages.  But maybe if we look first at our own lives and the lives of those we love, and then do what we can to strengthen, encourage, love and serve each other, maybe this will do more to protect and stabilize families than scapegoating other people and throwing stones at them ever could?  

I value religious freedom.  Therefore, I need to be respectful to those who practice other faiths, or no faith.  If I want tolerance and respect, I may have to give it.  

We need national policy that supports the human rights standards of international law and strongly opposes torture and inhumane treatment of anyone.  Sorry, can’t say  that one gentler.  Torture is wrong!  

I believe our power as a nation should be used in advocating for justice and respect for human rights in places like Darfur, Burma, and Palestine (and others) and exposing and bringing to justice those who commit ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity.  Matthew 5:9 says “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God,”  but can peace and democracy really be effectively promoted by starting a war that leads to more people dying and being in poverty, and will leave their country (and ours) paying the price for years to come? 

Mother Theresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”  So, the action part….guess I need to commit to being prayerfully, actively engaged in the system, not taking my liberty for granted and living as though I really really believe that the justice God is concerned about is not for “just-us”.    

 

 

 

How Do You Change the World? (poem)

Teresa Norman1 Comment

You get a different answer from every person you ask.  The most famous answer probably comes from the Bible (Mark 12:31 “Love your neighbor as yourself” — or the paraphrased version …”Treat other people the way you want to be treated”). Our friend, Dan Imburgia*, wrote one of the best, simplest, most profound answers I’ve ever heard in the song below, “A Heart Like Yours.”  

A Heart like Yours

            by Dan Imburgia
Jesus give to us a heart like yours so that we can love
And learn to care the way you do.
Jesus give to us peace like yours to rule our hearts
And know our father’s will the way you do.
Jesus give to us tears like yours, help us learn to cry
And share the burdens the way you do .

Jesus give to us a heart like yours so that we can love
And learn to care the way you do.
Jesus give to us eyes like yours help us see the truth
And to see a person the way you do.
Jesus give to us a mind like yours, help us understand
And take the time to listen the way you do.

Jesus give to us a heart like yours so that we can love
And learn to care the way you do.
Jesus give to us grace like yours though we don’t deserve
So we’ll forgive the way you do.
Jesus give to us a joy like yours
Then we’ll be complete
And with gladness serve the way you do.

Help us to become a new creation
When we walk in the light we’re walking with you
Then we’ll have enough light left over to share with a neighbor.
When the darkness is gone we’ll find something old is made new.

(*We met Dan and his wife, Lynda, when a friend of theirs came to church one Sunday with about 10 little kids following her in.  Judy was taking care of kids for people in various transitional states and after church we went and took a bunch of bread and peanut butter to her many peopled household.  She invited us to a home group that met at her house on Friday nights, and there we met some of the best friends we’ve ever had, people we’re still really lucky to count as friends years later, now that all the kids are grown and some have kids of their own.  These were the kind of friends that  taught us that faith is meant to be lived and to change everything it touches and that community isn’t just a place you live, it’s all the relationships that make life meaningful while you do life together.  I’m grateful for Dan & Lynda, Lance & Shellie, Terry, Jim & Maureen, Johny & Judy and the many others that wandered through those years…very grateful! )

Favorite Mother Theresa quote of the day: “If we have no peace, it’s because we have forgotten we belong to each other.”