But I am trusting you, O Lord, saying, “You are my God!” My future is in your hands. [Psalm 31:14-15a (NLT)]
Sometimes God doesn’t give you what you want not because you don’t deserve it but because you deserve better. [Anonymous Internet wisdom]
Because the nearby bird sanctuary/swamp gets its water from rainfall, the size of its lakes fluctuates substantially with the seasons. During the dry seasons of winter and spring, the swamp’s lakes gradually recede until the summer rains begin. When this annual dry-down occurs in springtime, the wading birds congregate in the shallow lakes. With the fish having no place to hide the shallow water, it’s as easy as catching fish in a rain barrel for the birds!
Anticipating a feeding frenzy as the swamp’s wading birds gathered in the receding lakes, we went out to the bird sanctuary. The dry-down happened faster than we expected. Instead of a shallow lake covered with water lettuce, we found only mud. Rather than a plethora of egrets, herons, wood storks, and roseate spoonbills, we encountered dozens of black vultures enjoying the remains of the stinking fish in the muck! What we got certainly wasn’t what we wanted or expected.
Since vultures are known for projectile vomiting if startled or threatened, I admit to some trepidation as I walked between the perched birds on the boardwalk. Nevertheless, seeing all those vultures was an amazing experience. In spite of our initial disappointment, we were thankful for the opportunity to witness nature’s clean-up crew at work.
In spite of our best-laid plans, we don’t always get what we pray for or expect. Emily Perl Kingsley, a mother of a child with a disability, wrote a beautiful essay titled “Welcome to Holland” in which she likens having a child with a disability to someone planning a fabulous trip to Italy. After months of eager expectation, however, she discovers the flight plan unexpectedly changed and she’s landed in Holland. Even though there’s nothing wrong with Holland, it’s not Italy! Admitting the pain in losing her longed-for destination, Kingsley adds, “But, if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things….about Holland.”
Unlike Kingsley, I’ve never arrived in Holland after expecting to touch down in Italy. Nevertheless, like her, God has changed my flight plans mid-air and I’ve landed in unplanned-for destinations. Sometimes, God’s plan is even better than we imagined and He takes us to Paris or Madrid when all we prayed for was St. Louis or Minneapolis! On the other hand, sometimes God’s plan takes us places we never wanted to visit—Al-Anon meetings, hospital rooms, nursing homes, grave sites, divorce court, or even Holland. Either way, God’s answer to our prayers is the right one—even though it’s different and unexpected. Trusting in God’s infinite love and wisdom, let us accept God’s plan with joy. Whether it’s vultures instead of roseate spoonbills, Keukenhof Gardens instead of the Colosseum, Edam cheese instead of pizza, or a special needs child instead of an honor student, may we seek to appreciate everything in our present situation and be thankful for our many blessings.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. [Emily Perl Kingsley]
Whenever we play Yahtzee, my younger grands blow on the dice to ensure their good luck. Like Yahtzee, life often seems a game of chance where sometimes we’re lucky and sometimes we’re not. Luck, however, has nothing to do with it. For example, King Ahab seemed to have incredibly bad luck when a soldier randomly shot an arrow and accidently hit him right between the joints of his armor. In spite of appearances, however, that wasn’t because of Ahab’s bad luck. Before going into battle, God had pronounced the evil king’s doom through His prophet Micaiah.
In Acts 6, Luke writes about a problem with the Hellenistic Jewish believers. Meaning “to speak Greek” or “to make Greek,” Hellenism describes Jewish assimilation to the Greek language, manners, and culture. The process started in the 4th century BC with Alexander’s conquest of Palestine when Greeks settled into the land and, at the same time, Jews dispersed throughout Greek empire.
When reciting the creeds as a youngster, I wondered why I said we believed in the catholic church when we didn’t go to one. My family didn’t attend the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our priest was married, and our service was in English, so why did we attest faith in the catholic church? It wasn’t until my confirmation class that I clearly understood that the creeds weren’t referring to the Roman Catholic church. Coming from the Greek katholikos (derived from kath holos, meaning “throughout the whole”), catholic simply means universal! The term originates from the first century and the words of Ignatius of Antioch: “Where Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church.”
Can worship be fun? In various translations, Hebrews 12:28 tells us to worship God with reverence and awe, honor and respect, or deep reverence. No where is there any mention of fun. In fact, except for the somewhat cynical and world-weary words directing us to eat, drink, and be merry in Ecclesiastes 8:15 Scripture uses the word “fun” in a negative way—that of “making fun” of someone. Hagar was sent away after she and Ishmael made fun of Isaac, Delilah accused Sampson of making fun of her with his lies, and the fertile Peninnah made fun of Hannah because of her barrenness. So, if, by “fun,” we mean mere amusement (especially at another’s expense), it doesn’t seem that fun and worship go hand in hand. On the other hand, if by “fun” we mean something deeper than light-hearted entertainment or diversion, perhaps it does.
While baking banana bread, I decided to add in the last of the walnuts I found in the refrigerator. After pouring the dough into the prepared pans, I spotted a few walnut pieces that hadn’t made the mixing bowl and popped them in my mouth. One taste told me they were rancid! Not only are rancid nuts horrid tasting but, if enough are consumed, they can make you sick! Just as there’s no way to get a little bit of yeast out of a lump of dough, there was no way to get every last bit of nut nastiness out of the bread. A mere cup of nuts managed to turn more than eight cups of what should have been sweet and delicious into something bitter and sour. As I emptied the pans into the garbage, I recalled a sermon illustration about a thirteen-year-old girl.
