God Makes the Small Mighty

"But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,

Too little to be among the clans of Judah,

From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.

His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity."

--Micah 5:2

Original watercolor copyright 1991 Gloria Fisher.

All rights reserved.

Learn To Be Quiet

"If hearing from God is a goal in our life, then we must start with the aim of becoming silent. This means shutting out the invading noises around us and the constant sounds within our minds. To become really silent we must become still and quiet both on the outside and on in the inside."

Copyright 2009 Gloria Fisher.

All rights reserved.

Meditation on The Way

Copyright 2009 Gloria Fisher. All rights reserved.

Jesus said in John 14:6 "I am the Way and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me."

Today there is disagreement between some in mainline denominations, between evangelicals and liberals, and between Christians and other world religions about whether Jesus is the only way to salvation. Arguments fly because non-Christians cannot bring themselves to believe that God would not honor any other religion except Christianity. They say, "My Muslim friend is a really nice person. Surely, he is going to heaven!" When a Christian says, "No. I’m sorry but only believers and followers of Jesus Christ are saved," then the discussion usually deteriorates into either a heated argument or a silent stand off. The Christian may say, "This is not my opinion. It says so in the Bible. Jesus said it!" That answer doesn’t usually fix the problem.

Those people who don’t believe Jesus is the Way also don’t believe most of what the Bible says about Him or what He said Himself. Either Jesus was who he said He was or He was crazy. C. S. Lewis said in his book, Mere Christianity, "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

When Jesus said, "No one can come to the Father but through me," He meant it. But doubters say, "Well, surely that can’t be right. Surely, my Hindu neighbor can get to God! Surely, my Buddhist cousin is saved! He’s such a good person." Most Americans especially don’t study world religions and don’t know what Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims really believe. They only "know" what they hear from television or from their family and friends. No other religion bases the salvation of its followers on a God who came to earth to die for them out of love. Or who rose from the dead to save them from their sinful lives.

When Jesus said, "I am the Way..." What did He mean? Perhaps He meant that He knows the way to the Father and is the only one who knows the way precisely because He is the only one who has ever come from God, lived as a man, and then gone back to God. He has traveled that way and He knows the way from heaven and back. He alone can possibility say, "I know the way, follow me. I’ll show you the way there. I am your way to get there. I am the way to God. I am the way to heaven. I am the way to eternal life."

And who else is? Did Buddha come from God? He never said he did. Did Mohammed come from God? Was he with God in the beginning? Not ever did Mohammed claim to be God in the flesh. No other world religious leader but Jesus said, "The Father and I are one." (John 10:30)

Even John the Baptist recognized Jesus as the way. He knew that Isaiah the prophet had seen the day coming when "the way" would arrive. John quotes Isaiah in Matthew 3:3 when he says about himself that he is, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord...’"

Evidently, the first followers of Jesus believed that He was the Way. Before they were called Christians, they were referred to as "men and women belonging to The Way." (Acts 9:3) In other words men and women belonging to Jesus.

In Hebrews 10:20 the writer says that believers have "confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way..." The living way is obviously Jesus. What other living way is there? None. No one else shed His blood for the lives of sinners.

The way in which you do something is "how you do it." Following that logic then Jesus is the How you get to heaven. The How you are saved. The How you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is How you have eternal life–the Way you have eternal life. The only Way.

Young Mary

I know not all of that which I contain.
I'm small; I'm young; I fear the pain
All is surprise: I am to be a mother.
That Holy Thing within me and no other
is Heaven's King whose lovely Love will reign.
My pain, his gaining my eternal gain
my fragile body holds Creation's Light;
its smallness shelters God's unbounded might.
The angel came and gave, did not explain.
I know not all of that which I contain.

Poem by Madeleine L'Engle from
The Ordering of Love

Abide in Me

"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you." --John 15:7

Original watercolor copyright Gloria Fisher 1990. All rights reserved.

Authenticity

Copyright 2009 Gloria Fisher.
All rights reserved.

When I was a child and in the third grade, we had a project to do in class. Finger painting. What could be more fun! Bright colors on a slick white page of paper. The best part was the messiness of it all. Small hands squishing swirls of blue and green and red. It tickled my insides. Not looking at anyone else’s paper I focused on being creative in my own imagination. With the confidence of a nine year old I let my mind run wild.

It was only later at the end of class when my teacher looked at mine, and I saw the disappointment on her face that I realized I had not done well at all. Only when she said, "Well, dear, I don’t think you’re going to be an artist," did I look around to compare my artwork with anyone else’s. At that moment I believed her because, after all, she was the teacher, and she should know. It has taken decades to get past her negative opinion and nourish the artist within me.

How many of us lost our creativity and passion in our childhood because of a thoughtless comment thrown out there from someone in authority? Many of us, I submit. When we were children, we didn’t know we weren’t artistic or smart or cute until someone told us. Needing their love and approval we erased ourselves a little at a time and became whomever and whatever they said we were. Over time we forgot who we really were and what it was we once wanted.

For some the long road back to whom they really are is long and hard. But with God’s help, with prayer, or with spiritual direction it is possible to grow into whom you were truly meant to be. To become an authentic person takes courage, strength, faith, and persistence. Making honest self-assessments sheds light on what your true desires are. Not what someone else wants you to be. By answering questions about what you want and where you want to go in the future sheds light on your path. What are your gifts? What do you love to do with your time? Where would you like to live? What does God want you to do?

Having an honest friend who will hold up a mirror to you helps. Some people have several friends who form a small success group to meet on a regular schedule to encourage each other toward their goals. Others meet in prayer groups to pray for authenticity and the courage to stick by their decisions. Accepting criticism about weaknesses is difficult but necessary. Only with that knowledge is it possible to repair what damage has been done and move on. Prayer, quiet time, and reflection seem to buoy solutions to the surface where they can be available for usage in the formation of a new life.

Unfortunately, we have all had our authentic selves twisted and wounded by unthinking people. But there is a place of healing and new beginnings. With God’s help we can move past old hurts and step into what I call the Grace Groove where we are truly ourselves. In that place we move effortlessly, fully functioning, truly alive. We know exactly what we’re doing. We work wholeheartedly and also enjoy our leisure. We have balance in our lives. We know we are where we ought to be. Sure it takes work. But with God’s help it is possible to become what God intended us to be in the beginning, His creative and passionate children.

St. Augustine

"Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation."

--Ancient Faith Bible
Copyright 2007 Holman Christian Standard Bible

Our Conscience is Watching

Copyright 2009 Gloria Fisher.
All rights reserved.

While sitting in the car waiting on my husband in the grocery store a shiny SUV pulled into the handicapped parking space next to us, and a 20-something young man in a baseball cap hopped out and ran into the store. There was no handicapped license plate on his car. There was no handicapped card on his mirror. And he had no idea the trouble he was causing a handicapped person who might actually need the parking space close to the building. Nor did he have any idea of the damage he was doing to himself.

Some people might think that stealing a handicapped parking space from a truly handicapped person might be a small thing. After all it’s only a few minutes or so. What harm could it do? Yes, there’s a chance that no one else wanted or needed the spot. But what does it do to us when we deliberately choose the wrong behavior over and over again?

In my experience as a spiritual director I observe that there is an underlying thread that connects the events in our lives to create what becomes the fabric of our lives. That thread connects our past, runs through our present, and flows right into our future. Part of that thread is our conscience.

St. Paul talks about our conscience in 1 & 2 Corinthians, Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews. He talks about various states of our conscience: a good conscience, a clear conscience, a blameless conscience, a weak conscience, and an evil conscience. In 1 Corinthians Paul talks about a weak conscience in verse 8:7. What makes a weak conscience? I would submit that a conscience is made weak by continually choosing what is wrong behavior over what is right. What we fail to see is that our conscience is watching us. Our conscience is observing our behavior all the time. When we choose to do the right thing, we feel good about ourselves. Our conscience is clear. Our conscience is good. It doesn’t bother us.

However, if we choose to do the wrong thing, our conscience sees it. And it does bother us. It may even make us feel guilty when it knows that we have deliberately chosen to do what we know in our hearts and/or in our minds is the wrong thing to do. When our conscience feels guilty, we feel bad. If that bad feeling grows we may even start to feel depressed. Fortunately, God has given us confession as a way to ease our guilty feelings. We can talk to God. Tell Him how badly we feel and almost instantly we feel better. Not that God does not know what we did. He does know. But we need to say the words in order to ease our conscience.

If we ignore a guilty conscience. If we continue to make bad choices, our conscience could get weak. When it becomes weak, it stops feeling guilty. It sees us doing wrong and keeps quiet. It no longer functions in the way that God meant it to function as an alarm to warn us to do right. When our conscience is quiet, we no longer notice that what we do is wrong. But somewhere on a very deep level our conscience is recording our behavior and sending messages to our minds and hearts that we are becoming bad. Continual wrong behavior over time, ignoring messages from our consciences, eventually will convince us that we are bad people and not worthy of blessings, not worthy of prosperity, not worthy of God’s love. At that point we truly need a savior who will come and rescue us from ourselves. That savior is Jesus Christ.

These thoughts were going through my mind as I watched the young man stealing a handicapped parking space. Maybe that’s not a big deal to him now I thought. But his conscience is watching what he does. It records that decision to do wrong. Continued bad decisions will mount up until something has to break. Either he’ll make a very large wrong decision and hurt himself or someone else or hopefully, he’ll break down and ask forgiveness before much real damage is done. I prayed for him. Lord, forgive him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing or how it effects other people. Show him before it’s too late. May he come to know You and Your forgiveness very soon. Amen.