Buildings

I've been reading through the book of Jeremiah since early June.  It's not an easy book to read & study.  One cannot simply peruse through all 52 chapters of impending promises of punishment and judgment and destruction - it's brutal.  I like Jeremiah.  I like that his greatest achievement was his courageous & faithful obedience to God.  I like that he wasn't accomplished or even a success by any means...his picture certainly would not be in a dictionary next to the word SUCCESS.  I like that he was a weeper.  Jeremiah was often mistreated and threatened and rejected by the very people God sent him to speak to because the people refused to hear what God was saying, and that grieved him very much.  

I believe God has as much to say to His people today as He did when He spoke through Jeremiah 600 years before Christ came to redeem man.  God wants people to turn back from their sin, from living life on their terms - which results in a life lived separated from Him, the Giver of all life.

I take notes and I jot down thoughts & ideas while I'm studying the Word.  One thing I noticed early on in Jeremiah was God's calling out those who worshiped idols.  God describes idols as worthless, foreign, carved from wood (man-made), detestable, helpless as scarecrows who cannot speak or walk, so-called who did not make the heavens or the earth, decaying, abominable, frauds, lifeless, powerless, ridiculous, and lies.  God has been very clear with His people when it comes to idols: "You must not have any other god but me." (Exodus 20:2 NLT)  Clear, right?  You would think so, but to many, sadly it's not.  

There are millions of people and places and things in this world which serve as idols.  The beach or the grocery store or cleaning the house or sleeping in or brunch on Sunday morning.  Loving your spouse or girl/boyfriend more than God.  Jobs which consume your time & making money, money, money.  Cars & other expensive toys & stuff.  School work & extracurriculars & books & getting into college. Television shows or movies & celebrities who are not worthy of your worship.  Food.  Exercise.  Sports - whether attending or playing. Buildings.  ...Yes, buildings.  

I do love old buildings, houses, barns, churches, whatever.  There's history to learn about from those buildings.  The people who, over the years, have crossed the thresholds of those buildings intrigue me.  What grieves me though, is that our church buildings often become idols.  The very place which should be a holy place for the believer to go to be in the presence of the Lord often becomes more important than just being in the presence of the Lord.  

How many church families have broken up because of disputes regarding their church building? Too many, I'm afraid.  The color of the walls, the color of the carpet, the color of the fabric on the pews. The height, width, shape of the stain-glass windows.  The type of pulpit.  The hymnals!   The type of music and songs!  Whether to renovate or not renovate!  All idols when all of that becomes more important than the God who provides it and who we praise through song & prayers & words and who is definitely more than worthy of our worship.  

Guess what?  Disputes over that brick & mortar building which caused so much brokenness within church families all over America is going to decay and crumble and rust away and rot. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but when this world is folded up and Christ sets up His Kingdom to come, that lovely fought-over building will be dust, like it was never even there.  The termites and beetles and water and storms and winds and rain will have their way with that building. Why? Because it's temporal.  It's not eternal.  We The Church are eternal.  The church building will hopefully not even be a memory once we're Home.  

Just something that's been on my heart and mind for a while now.

           

Finding Plateau Avenue

My knee hurts today.  Badly, actually.  I noticed it was tender as I went up & down steps over the weekend, but didn't think much about why.  Yesterday, though, it became a nuisance knee. It hurts bad enough that I debated with myself for about ten seconds in favor of not walking at all this morning, and after the bossy, know-it-all, disciplined part of me won that debate, I got up at 5:45, got myself geared up, and headed into town like I do five days a week now for the 1.35+ mile walk around Lake DeFuniak.  [aside...I had to ask the Lord to guide my feet as I walked and to keep me from stepping the wrong way so I didn't fall.  I have tripped & fallen on flat surfaces before, so there's that.  No one's ever called me "Grace."]

  

Lake DeFuniak is one of two almost perfectly & naturally round spring-fed lakes in the world. When the water isn't as high as it presently is, you can see and use the sidewalk that goes all the way around the water's edge, measuring about 9/10s of a mile.  The top of Lake DeFuniak on Circle Drive, which is where I and most others walk, has sidewalks in front of beautiful old historical homes and buildings, many dating back more than a century.  I have a point of no return on my walk everyday.  It started years ago when I began walking the route I do now and I would try to talk myself out of walking.  Anyway, my point of no return is literally the corner of Plateau Avenue and Circle Drive.  When I walked to that point I would give myself the option of turning back to where I began walking or continuing walking.  

As I walked hobbled on this hurting knee this morning I thought about turning back, seriously... Why do more damage to this cranky, old knee?  Then I thought about what giving up like that will do to me in the long-run.  I thought about wanting to give up tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and then the day after that.  I cannot do that anymore; I cannot have that mindset. We all reach a point when we must stop giving up.  A point in our lifelong song when we must refuse to listen to the enemy as he taunts us through our physical aches and pains, through others' mocking words and side-glances, through our own insecurities.  

In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful." (2 Timothy 4:7 NLT)  Like Paul, I have to fight and press on daily, run this race called life daily, and remain faithful to who & what I know to be right and true and just daily. That's why I have Plateau Avenue & Circle Drive as my point of no return.  When I make it that far I'm encouraged to continue walking...to keep on keepin' on, to use an old, worn-out cliche, to fight that voice who says "turn back, it's too hard...it's too far...it's too hot...it's too cold...it's too rainy," and to finish this early morning race.  I can honor God by being faithful in that race.  

I've found my Plateau Avenue.  Let me ask this of you, at what point in your life will you begin to refuse to give up and begin to refuse to give in to the lies of the enemy? 

  

Who/What/When/Where is your Plateau Avenue?             

So let's not get tired of doing what is good.  
At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing 
if we don't give up.
(Galatians 6:9 NLT)

I Want to Live Life Well

The group Switchfoot has a song, "Live It Well," (from their upcoming album) which plays itself over and over and over in my head...  You're singing it now aren't you? [aside...There is a reason I use the hashtag, #thereisalwaysasonginmyhead when I post song lyrics on Instagram, btw.]

Live It Well...meaning this life I've been given by the Creator Giver of all life. 

The beginning of the chorus, 

"Life is short; I wanna live it well.  One life, one story to tell," 

is the reason it plays over and over in my head...but it's the second verse which begins with 

"I wanna sing with all my heart a lifelong song; 

  Even if some notes come out right 

and some come out wrong" 

that makes me reflect on my wrong notes and how, hopefully, I've changed because I learned not to keep singing those wrong notes, and that, yes, it is okay to have belted out some wrong notes amidst the right ones.  It's those wrong notes which serve to help me learn how to sing a lifelong song that will produce a sound pleasing to those who listen for it and hear it, especially to my Father God, who is ultimately the One I desire to please and glorify through the lifelong song that is my life.    

Doing my best to Live It Well by walking the fluffy OFF