On the Blog – October 2018

Summaries and links to blog posts for October 2018

  • Hurricane Michael Aftermath – Get Close – Day 31 of Handmade (10/31)
    Sometimes you have to get close. We’re getting up close and personal with Hurricane Michael this week. Panama City is now more than a vacation spot to us.
  • Hear A Different Voice – Day 30 of Handmade (10/30)
    Listen for a different voice. We weren’t speaking the same language. But we found a way to communicate.
  • Books I Recommend to Bring Us Together – Day 29 of Handmade (10/29)
    Books bring us together with people we would never meet otherwise. Here are four books I recommend from what I finished this month.
  • Begin with Worship – Day 28 of Handmade (10/28)
    How would you describe worship? It’s a perfect way to start a day, a week, a life.
  • See the Whole Picture – Day 27 of Handmade (10/27)
    It helps to see the whole picture. I don’t like mopping the floor. But when I think of my grandbaby crawling on it, it’s much easier to do.
  • When It’s Not Your First Time – Day 26 of Handmade (10/26)
    There’s a first time for everything. While we can never repeat a first ourselves, we can enjoy a first with someone else.
  • How Does He Capture You? – Day 25 of Handmade (10/25)
    Is it safe to put all our eggs in one basket, if the Lord is holding the basket?
  • You Know Enough Already – Day 24 of Handmade (10/24)
    Sometimes we think we have to know everything before we can do something. But as believers, it’s more about who we belong to than how much we know.
  • Uncommon Things at Church – Day 23 of Handmade (10/23)
    This homeless man was going to prove it wasn’t just another day at church. Uncommon things happen when we wake up.
  • Take the Shortcut? – Day 22 of Handmade (10/22)
    Sometimes shortcuts give us the help we need. But other times? They rob us of time with God.
  • Just Start – Day 21 of Handmade (10/21)
    Sometimes we fail to start because we can’t imagine finishing. But start anyway. Take one step today.
  • Do You Like an Audience? – Day 20 of Handmade (10/20)
    Some people crave an audience. Others of us avoid the limelight. Which are you?
  • When Did You Convert – Day 19 of Handmade (10/19)
    When we turn around and head a different direction, we’ve experienced conversion. God continues to bring us times of conversion. These are no less real than our initial conversions.
  • Call Off the Search – Day 18 of Handmade (10/18)
    We look and look. But what if we already have it? Call off the search.
  • Worship in the Pause – Day 17 of Handmade (10/17)
    Just sit still in the pause. It may birth the most radical worship you can offer.
  • Pray to Do More Than Pray – Day 16 of Handmade (10/16)
    We often pray for people. But what if God wants to use us as an answer? We pray we’ll do more than pray.
  • When You Get Your Grace – Day 15 of Handmade (10/15)
    When will you receive a fresh supply of grace? Always today.
  • When You’re Afraid to Ask – Day 14 of Handmade (10/14)
    Why don’t you ask God for more? You don’t have to know how or when or who he’ll use to answer.
  • Call or Text? What’s the Best Way to Talk? – Day 13 of Handmade (10/13)
    Text or call? How do you decide what mode of communication to use in each situation?
  • Which Side Are You On? The Great Divide – Day 12 of Handmade (10/12)
    By just one question, we classify people as right or left. What if we asked a different question instead, to heal instead of divide?
  • Oil the Hinges – Day 11 of Handmade (10/11)
    Doors are made to both open and close. Are your hinges oiled?
  • How Do You Worship? – Day 10 of Handmade (10/10)
    Often we know what and why we do what we do. But how to do it? That can vary. How do you worship?
  • Breathe in the Inspiration – Day 9 of Handmade (10/9)
    When days are dark, what or who inspires you to keep going? What is God inspiring you to do in this season?
  • Step Out of Your Comfort Zone – Day 8 of Handmade (10/8)
    Comfort zones feel safe. But not much growth happens there. What comfort zone is God calling you out of?
  • This Is Why It’s Safe to Hope – Day 7 of Handmade (10/7)
    Sometimes we’re fearful to get our hopes up. But it’s safe to. Because God is already in our tomorrows.
  • Do You Belong at Church? – Day 6 of Handmade (10/6)
    Where do you go to church? Do you belong there?
  • What Do You Need to Let Go Of? – Day 5 of Handmade (10/5)
    What do you need to let go of? Sometimes we have to let go of one thing before we can receive another.
  • Why, Why, Why – Day 4 of Handmade (10/4)
    We never know as much as we think we do. So keep asking why, why, why.
  • Who Do You Believe? – Day 3 of Handmade (10/3)
    What do you believe in? Who do you believe? Join me for “Handmade – Finding God in Your Story”
  • 5 Links, Books, and Things I Love – October 2018 (10/2)
    Links and pictures of articles, books, and things I love for October 2018
  • What Scares You? Day 2 – Handmade (10/2)
    What are you afraid of? Which fear do you wish God would take away?
  • Where Is God in Your Story? Handmade – A #Write31Days Series (10/1)
    Where has God been in your story? Answer 3 questions for 31 days to find God in your handmade story.

 


Hurricane Michael Aftermath – Get Close – Day 31 of Handmade

Close

Sometimes you have to get close enough to see. With your own eyes.

To touch with your hands. To hear with your ears.

So you can feel with your heart.

I’m in Panama City, Florida, this week. But not on vacation.

We did that a month ago. Stayed on the beach. Played in the water. Ate fish at night.

Hurricane Michael Visits

Then 2 weeks later, Hurricane Michael visited Panama City, Florida, too.

Now we’re back getting closer to this place than we’ve ever been before. Now we are in homes and in neighborhoods and meeting people who live and work here year round.

And they are hurting. Around Panama City and further east is a war zone. So many beautiful trees were broken off or ripped from the ground and became missiles in roofs and windows and vehicles. Homes.

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So as we get our hands on the mess, we are closer to Panama City than we’ve ever been before.

It’s Personal

No longer will the wait staff at our favorite restaurants here be nameless faces. The staff at the condos will now be more real to us than ever. The cashiers at the grocery stores will be personal to us.

The people will run into around town might be one of our new friends.

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Because this is more to us now than a vacation destination. This is somebody’s home.

And it’s personal.

Please don’t forget the survivors.

Keep praying. They want that. They need that.

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Three Questions

Here are our three questions of the day:

(1) If you could travel anywhere you’ve never been, where would you go?

(2) Do you have a favorite vacation spot from your childhood or currently?

(3) Who do you think God wants you to really see that you’ve previously overlooked?

* * *
What are your answers? Please share in the comments.

My answers

(1) Probably Europe

(2) Anywhere with a good beach

(3) The people in front of me this week in Panama City

Get the whole Handmade series here

Handmade - Finding God in Your Story


Hear A Different Voice – Day 30 of Handmade

Voice

She was trying hard to get the verbs right.

He is tall.
I am tall.
They are tall.

It was a struggle. English is a difficult language to pick up as an adult.

Hear a Different Voice

But we kept working through our ESL lesson together.

I’m brand new at teaching English as a Second Language. This was only my second week. I was discovering there were many words I take for granted that she couldn’t understand.

Between her minimal English and my minimal Spanish, we were struggling to communicate.

A Different Tongue

When we speak different languages, it’s sometimes easier to just ignore each other and walk away.

And different languages don’t have to be tongues like Spanish and English.

  • Our different language may be Christianese.
  • It may be technical work jargon.
  • It may be a series of private sayings within a family.

Within our own subcultures, these languages work. We can communicate well when everyone knows the same words.

But once we step outside our boundaries, we have to broaden our vocabularies.

Learn someone else’s language. Then teach them yours. Do it with intention. Do it with frequency.

The English lesson with my student may not have been super successful that night. She eventually called in her 8-year-old daughter to help translate and bridge the gap.

But we did have fun along the way. We laughed a lot. She tried telling me a story in Spanish about either her husband or her brother. Her speech was so fast I couldn’t understand the details, but maybe I got the gist of it. Body language helped fill the gaps.

I hope in weeks ahead we’ll be able to laugh more when we look back at how far we’ve come.

Because when we learn new words, not only are we picking up a new language, we’re also making new friends.

Three Questions

Here are our three questions of the day:

(1) Did you learn pig Latin as a child?

(2) What foreign languages do you know or are you around?

(3) How has God used voices from others to reveal a different part of his character to you? 

* * *

What are your answers? Please share in the comments.

My answers

(1) Esyay, igpay atinlay asway unfay.

(2) The foreign language I hear the most consistently in Alabama is Spanish. I’ve been trying to learn it for years, but I’m slow.

(3) Spending time in El Salvador and Guatemala showed me how God can inspire contentment in people who live on far less than I could ever imagine. If they can be happy with God in their lack, I have no excuses in my comparative wealth.

Get the whole Handmade series here

 


Books I Recommend to Bring Us Together – Day 29 of Handmade

Together

We usually associate most comfortably with people who are similar to us.

Even if we want to meet people outside of our culture, it’s not always easy to do if they’re just not here and not available where we are.

Except. . .

Books! They can bring us together in unexpected ways.

Books-Together

Books introduce us to people we wouldn’t know otherwise. And places. And circumstances.

And who knows? We might later use our new knowledge even among the people we already do know.

The four books I finished this month brought me together with other cultures that I don’t live in and brought me closer to God.

Here are the 2 novels and 2 non-fiction books I recommend from what I finished reading in October. Once a month we share our current reading list at Jennifer’s.

Books I Recommend

FICTION

1. Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan

mudbound

It’s 1940s in the Mississippi Delta. White city-girl Laura McAllan has had to move to farming country to live her husband’s dream. She befriends a family of black sharecroppers on their land. Each character in this novel has a unique struggle as they are forced to make a life together.

2. Stay with Me
by Ayobami Adebayo

stay-with-me

Set in Nigeria, this book travels back and forth in time to tell the polygamous love story of Yejide and Akin. It’s painful at times as Yejide struggles with infertility, and as she learns her husband has taken a second wife.

NON-FICTION

3. How Not to Get Shot
And Other Advice From White People
by D. L. Hughley

how-not-to-get-shot

This book is by a black comedian and satirist D. L. Hugley. He writes suggestions for how black people can avoid getting shot in encounters with police and white people. It has some rough language at times, and it is quite funny in places, but the message of danger and injustice is a serious one and it comes through loud and clear in between the laughs.

4. God of Tomorrow
How to Overcome the Fears of Today and Renew Your Hope for the Future
by Caleb W. Kaltenbach

God-of-Tomorrow

Pastor Kaltenbach writes on a huge range of cultural issues. I don’t agree with all of his biblical interpretations, but I do agree with his tone of love and trust and hope. He invites us to respond to each other with more grace than we have been. He successfully repeats the truth again and again that relying on the God of tomorrow helps us live better today.

My review here of God of Tomorrow

READING NOW

  • A Prayer for Owen Meany
    by John Irving
  • The Last Ballad
    by Cash Wiley
  • Raise Your Voice
    Why We Stay Silent and How to Speak Up
    by Kathy Khang
  • 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
    by Yuval Noah Harari
  • Resist and Persist
    Faith and the Fight for Equality
    by Erin Wathen
  • Remember Death
    The Surprising Path to Living Hope
    by Matthew McCullough 

Three Questions

Here are our three questions of the day:

(1) Have you traveled outside your home country?

(2) Do you have friends who are very different than you in some way?

(3) Has God ever used a book to change the way you view something or someone?

* * *

What are your answers? Please share in the comments.

My answers

(1) El Salvador and Guatemala

(2) Yes, especially in the last 5 years. It’s been eye-opening and soul-growing.

(3) God uses books all the time to teach me new things and change my mind about old things.

Get the whole Handmade series here

Handmade - Finding God in Your Story


Begin with Worship – Day 28 of Handmade

Song

How do you describe “worship”?

In a secular context, we’d describe how fans worship a famous actor or sports star.

But in the church world, we’d typically describe Sunday mornings.

Sunday morning church is often referred to as a “Worship Service.” It is somewhat accurate; we do offer God our worship there. (Read Barbara’s excellent post on “What Is Worship?” here.)

But hopefully our worship extends past Sunday praise-singing.

  • It’s Monday clothes-washing, and
  • Tuesday dinner-cooking, and
  • Wednesday pantry-serving, etc.

Worship is perfect way to start a day

Power Start

Yet still, singing my worship on Sunday mornings starts the week with power.

In the midst of praising God, God pours grace on me.

  • Through his promises we sing about
  • Through melodious music he has inspired
  • Through other people worshiping beside me

Because God is so worthy of worship, it’s easy to give him praise. We can temporarily set aside our own issues and focus on the wonder of Christ.

Self-forgetfulness and Jesus-awareness are heightened during worship.

“Worship is an end in itself. We do not eat the feast of worship as a means to anything else. Happiness in God [which is the heart of worship] is the end of all our seeking. Nothing beyond it can be sought as a higher goal.”
– David Mathis

Worship is a perfect way to start a day, a week, a life.

And a perfect way to end one as well.

Three Questions

Here are our three questions of the day:

(1) Do you have a favorite actor, singer, or sports hero?

(2) Do you sing or play a musical instrument as worship, either at church or at home?

(3) When are you most inspired to worship God?

* * *

What are your answers? Please share in the comments.

My answers

(1) My latest favorite artists are Matt Maher, Lauren Daigle, Cory Asbury, Tauren Wells.

(2) I sing with our church praise team (but I have no extraordinary talent). I play the piano only at home.

(3) Music, nature, people’s kindness to one another—these things point me to the wonder of God.

More here

  • Be an Intercessory Worshiper
    God places us in community to be placeholders for hope, for prayer, for grace. Who can you be in intercessory worship for?
  • Great Worship Study Resource
    This book by Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, is an excellent compilation of scriptures and commentary on both Old Testament and New Testament scriptures on worship.
  • Worship Different
    It was just a small change but a good change. May we never be too rigid to embrace change or too comfortable to try something different. Growing in worship is worth it all.

revised from the archives

Get the whole Handmade series here

 


See the Whole Picture – Day 27 of Handmade

Whole

It helps to see the whole picture.

A week ago I was busy cleaning house. Dusting. Vacuuming. Even mopping.

I don’t mop often, sorry to report.

But our granddaughter was coming. And she has learned how to crawl (sort of).

crawling

Because I knew she would spend time on the floor, I wanted the floors as clean as possible.

It’s the whole picture.

I don’t just clean the house because it’s fun (it’s not). Or because I need something else to do (I don’t).

I do it because I love the people who will be in it.

When we remember the big picture, it helps us stay motivated.

I still didn’t enjoy mopping the floor. But I did it with a lot more joy when I imagined my sweet grandbaby on it.

And later when I saw her crawling on it, I had the most joy of all.

Three Questions

Here are our three questions of the day:

(1) What’s your most dreaded household chore?

(2) Are you a skimmer of books and articles, or are you compelled to read the whole thing?

(3) Is there anything missing in your life that you wish God would give you right now to bring wholeness?

* * *

What are your answers? Please share in the comments.

My answers

(1) Cleaning the bathtub is one of my least favorite things.

(2) I skim articles. I sometimes skim non-fiction books if they get repetitive. I read every word of novels (I’m afraid I’ll miss an important nugget of information if I skim).

(3) My life feels very whole, but I do wish Morgan’s family lived closer.

Get the whole Handmade series here