So, He's ready – what are we waiting for?…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Don't be spiritually impertinent.

NOTE TO MY FRIENDS:  Am I the only Christian in the world who doesn't own her own copy of "Utmost"?  Stormie got the only copy they had at the library for me.  It isn't just "large" print.  It's GIANT print.  I leave it in the family room and read it while I eat breakfast in the kitchen.  That Oswald Chambers – man, he's good!

Perusing an old Baptist Hymnal this morning (Church Service Hymns, copyright 1948), I was engaged by an interesting responsive reading entitled, "The Woes of Strong Drink."

For those of you without a liturgical church background, a responsive reading is usually printed in the church bulletin as part of the worship service.  The first line is read by the pastor or reader and then the whole congregation responds by reading the next line.  This can be a very powerful exercise on some topics.  Try to imagine me reading the unhighlighted portions and you be the "congregation."  Let's do this out loud, OK?  Feel free to imagine all your friends, family and co-workers reading along with you.  It will make your responses so much more effective.  Ready?  Here goes:

Hear, thou, my son, and be wise and guide thine heart in the way.

Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:

For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

Who hath woe?  Who hath sorrow?  Who hath contentions?  Who hath babbling?  Who hath wounds without cause?  Who hath redness of eyes?

They that tarry long at the wine;  they that go to seek mixed wine.

Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.

At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.

They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick;  they have beaten me, and I felt it not:  when shall I awake?  I will seek it yet again.

Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them.

And the harp, and the viol, and the tabret, and pipe, and wine are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands.

Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink.

Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him and makest him drunken also.

Well, yes, indeed – woe unto the person who would make his neighbor drunk.  I think that is a reasonable judgement.  Woe – seriously: WOE – don't do it!  Don't make people drunk!!!  And I don't know if you should be doing it either since winebibbers are all inevitably riotous flesh eaters, too.  You don't want that.  Am I right?

Just kidding.

Naturally, I feel a bit cheated at my modern worship service.  I would love to hear the whole congregation, all of us, next Sunday belting out with passion: Thine eyes shall behold strange women and thine heart shall utter perverse things.  No, instead we will just focus on Jesus Christ and giving Him our worship and, *sigh, will leave the convictions about strong drink to the Holy Spirit. 

A little fun with religion today because I don't like it much, although I am a wholeheartedly devoted follower of Jesus Christ – a friend of sinners and the God who actually saved me.  Blessings!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  The Holy Spirit realizes, I am certain,  that my very strong, bold, Venti coffee from Starbucks isn't the same as this other stuff…He does, right?…

In just a few weeks, right here in Denver, at the Pepsi Center, I believe, the annual Women of Faith Conference will take place.  As usual, they are sold out and women's ministry leaders from various churches are frantically making phone calls hoping for a few extra tickets from some one who had the foresight to purchase extra.

I would love to hear Beth Moore on Friday night of the WOF conference, because she is, besides being a trendy Christian icon (not of her own choosing, I am certain), a true lover of the Word of God and He has given her great insight into His heart.  She communicates it well.

But I am not going.  I am not against it at all, even if I am afraid of what might happen to a person squished in to an arena with thousands of church ladies.  There are probably nice women there, too, but I'll guarantee you there will be church ladies.  Somewhat frightening!

No, I won't be there, but the impending event has been making me think.  Here is something I've been chewing on for a few days ~

My friend Amanda Ottaway posted a blog last week of a list of good advice to live by.   "Wear sunscreen" was the first piece of advice.  "Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your living room," another read.  I love lists.  I actually own books of lists.  So, this post was fun for me. 

But right at the end, the list said this: "Be careful whose advice you buy…Advice is a form of nostalgia.  Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."

I started thinking of myself years ago as a young minister's wife, 3 really small children and another on the way (there was always another on the way in those days).  I remember attending a "ladies retreat" our church sponsored and we had the neatest speaker.  I was amazed by her because she could expound on any number of scripture passages and was a personal friend and Bible study leader to the wives of a professional football team.  She talked about how to really know God, you had to spend time with Him early.  She painted the picture of getting up before her family and sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of hot coffee just having some "quiet time" with Jesus. 

I was awestruck.  I wanted to be her.  My life was chaotic and consisted of spilled milk and cereal all over the floor and nursing and diapers and OB/gyn and pedriatric appointments.  I couldn't get up before my family because with babies in the house – you were already up at 1…and 2:30…and 4:47…and…  When I got the kids down for a nap in the afternoon, I'd say, "This is Your time, Lord," but could not keep my eyes open.  I just wanted what that speaker had.  I wanted to just have this perfectly beautiful life of faith. 

Funny – now I actually do get up early and get to have coffee at my kitchen table, but I nearly killed myself to get here.  I didn't come by choice.  I lost a lot.  I lost almost everything.  There are still things I am losing. "Pride comes before a fall'?  It's true. I can tell you this from personal experience.  Nothing about me actually turned out like the speaker – at least what she presented to us. 

Who knows?  Maybe her road was tough, but what she told us wasn't.  It was sweet and very lady-like and Christian and serene and gentle.  I could tell her house was spotless, her husband adored her and her kids were on the honor roll.  It was once my great goal.  Life doesn't always turn out just like that.

I have mulled over the quote from Amanda's blog, "Dispensing (advice) is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth."  And I have started thinking how much I don't want to do that.  I have daughters who are the age I was when I heard that speaker – who was the age I am now and the things I tell my daughters and the MOPS mommies I speak to and any of the women God puts in my path – they should be real and true and the truth is I have not always been a "woman of faith."  In fact, sometimes it seems I rarely have. 

I feel more like a woman of fury – a woman who wrestles with her faith and her God and whose life hasn't been wrapped in a tidy package.  To be honest, to be true – I need to pull the the rotting junk from my garbage disposal (because of course, a woman of fury's disposal is not working correctly) plop it on the counter and allow you to see, really see.

Did that speaker go through times of hell to have the time of plenty she was in?  Probably.  Did she keep vital information from us, though?  Did she forget to mention how tough marriage can be and almost losing a child to drugs?  Did she ever contemplate suicide, have a bad body image or deal with depression and self-hatred?  Did she struggle with sin she could not get past- lying or pride and arrogance?  Is it fair for us to tout blessing without telling you the price we paid?

So here I sit – thinking about an upcoming conference where women will gather and the chance to bring hope through truth will be huge; pondering the garbage disposal quote and thinking about the Christian women I know.

And I am thinking perhaps I will start a new movement: Women of Fury, real women who wrestle with their faith and if you want their advice – it's coming straight out of the garbage.  I already know a bunch of these women – they have pain, they go through hell and being misunderstood and diappointment and rejection and work hard through family problems and hang in there through church problems and defy the images of the day to dictate who they are.  They are fighting the good fight.  They are Women of Fury and I want to be just like them when I grow up.

My dear friends who are Women of Fury, you know who you are, you amaze and inspire me!  Blessings…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: I promise to tell the truth, the real truth and nothing but the ugly, disgusting, embarrassing truth, if You help me, Lord.  The truth hurts my pride, but it will set me free…and others, too, I hope!

When I was a kid, growing up in a pastor's home, we had really funny ideas about Sunday.  One was that it was "the Sabbath," sometimes called a "day of rest," and the other that it was to be set apart and be really different from other days of the week.

The reason both ideas were so odd is that for a pastoral family who had Sunday School and worship services and Sunday night church, too, to call Sundays a "day of rest" was not really very accurate.  It was truly a work day for my parents and my mom, who cooked the most elaborate meal of the week on Sundays, spent most of the precious few "off" hours she had that day on the couch with her feet elevated and a cold washcloth on her forehead trying to get past a headache.  But by golly – if anyone asked, it was our day of rest.  Ha!

The other part – the setting the day apart as different was really a good goal, but I just knew it made us the strangest people on the block.  Our attempt at making the Sabbath holy was achieved through, of course, lots of church attendance and perhaps Sunday dinner with parishoners.  It meant that I could not open the big, fat, juicy Sunday newspaper (I was a fanatic about newspapers) because we just didn't read them on Sundays.  We didn't watch television until after Sunday night service, if at all and we didn't shop on Sundays.  If we didn't have something we needed, we just didn't get it. 

I have come to understand that Sabbath rest is from God FOR me.  I now know – it is not a suggestion in case I feel I can fit it in, but it is a commandment.  I get that you work 6 days and then you rest one (just like God did!).  It doesn't have to be a Sunday (my daughter, Tara, takes hers on Thursdays), but it has to be every 6 days.  Period.  And I know from personal experience that if you think you're too busy, if you believe that the world will crash if you take a day of complete rest, if you walk in disobedience to this one thing after you know better – you will crash.  You will suffer the consequences and so will the people you love the most.

I attended an awesome Get the Word Out! intensive  (www.getthewordout.cc) on Sabbath rest last Saturday.  I invited people I love to come.  Most of them were too busy.  And in the ensuing week as we have talked, I see the weight they carry and the exhaustion in their faces and the weariness they dare not believe you can live without.  They are limping towards their vacations with great hope that it will be enough to get them through.  But here is a revolutionary concept concerning your days: work 6, rest 1…work 6, rest 1…work 6, rest 1…Mary Jean taught that (The GWO speaker/teacher) and asked to ponder, if we did that – work 6, rest 1, would that 2 week vacation we take be so desperate and wearing on us, or would we actually get to go in to it in really good shape – perhaps enjoying it and getting revitalized instead of having to use it to recuperate from life?  We should all consider it.

And the winner is?  The person committing to rest (God's gift), regularly, as prescribed by their Creator…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF: Rediscover restorative, creative, fun activities; indulge unabashedly and freely!

Rob Kelly, a preaching pastor at my local church, and my incredible son-in-law, Dave, preached "tag-team style" yesterday and it was an awesome message with incredible response from hungry hearts and people thirsting for something real.

The main text was from 1 John 2.12-14 which addresses believers according to the stages or levels of their spiritual growth rather than their ages.  This epistle was written to believers who were being polarized by false teachers who substituted "intellectual pursuits for faith and exalted speculation above the basic tenants of the gospel."*  John vigorously exposed the heresy and, on a strong love foundtion, confirmed the true faith of all believers – in the varied stages of faith in which they found themselves.  Check out the passage from The Message:

I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus' Name. 

You veterans were in on the ground floor and know the One who started all this; You newcomers have won a big vistory over the evil one.

And a second reminder, dear children:You know the Father from personal experience.

You veterans know the One who started it all; And you newcomers – such vitality and strength!  God's Word is steady in you. Your fellowship with God enables you to gain victory over the evil one.

I love the young Christian's passion and energy to go after God.  I hope a young Christian can see the veteran in me and still want to come this way. 

We're in this together, whatever your stage or mine…Jeanie

NOTE: Thanks to Rob for saying that we have to be a HOUSE OF PRAYER and a  PEOPLE OF THE WORD.  That is a vision we can run with until Jesus returns! And – thanks to my son, Dave, for showing people how to get into the Word so the Word can get into them.  You're salty.  You make people thirsty.

NOTE: *from The Spirit-Filled Life Study Bible, Jack Hayford

NOTE TO SELF: God, let Your Word be steady in me, steady and strong.