Salt and Light

A friend of mine passed away this week.   She was ninety years old.   I came to know her a bit over fourteen years ago when she was seventy-six .  Seventy-six years old…   It is an age where most of us hope to be retired, living comfortably and looking forward to a more restful, less-hectic pace.

Hers was a life well-lived.  As I reflect back on my relationship with her,  I realize that understanding who she was is only possible by knowing who God is.     She didn’t just possess faith, she walked with God.  Her everyday activities even the ordinary stuff of life was submitted to Him.  She didn’t simply fill up an hour with busyness or just let it happen, she asked God what He wanted her to do with it.   She trusted.  She prayed.  She listened.  She baked.  She encouraged.  She wrote.  She gave.  She taught.  She grew in wisdom.  She shared wisdom.   She took time to be with you.  She invited you in.  She helped.  She loved and was loved.   She lived the abundant life that Christ came to give us and never presumed to be something special.

Her life was touched by the love of Christ and transformed.   Her life touched mine and so many others.  As a result, our own faith is strengthened or perhaps even better our hearts find the glimmer of hope that enables us to believe in God’s amazing love and ourselves be transformed.

Thank you Lord for my friend.   Grant that we may be the kind of salt and light that leads others to you.

It is what you're thinking

I was listening to New Life on the radio the other day.  The crew was responding to a caller who was struggling with lust in his life.  The caller was 20-years old.  It says something that he is male, that age, able to recognize a problem and seek help to do something about it.

As a part of their response to the caller they told the story of a man who was 65 years-old before he began to effectively work on his own lust problems.  This 65-year old shared how he was changed.  He said that one of the tools that God used to change him was memorization of scripture.  Over time, this absorption into God's word began to work in his heart to the point where one day he found himself soaking in a hot tub at a hotel one evening when two women in bikinis approached him.  His first thoughts upon seeing them were "I wonder if their husbands love them?" and "I wonder if they know the Lord".  His next immediate thought was "Wow!  That was different!".  He realized that over time God had transformed him from seeing women as objects to satisfy his lustful desires into someone who saw them with God's eyes - as people, not objects.   It was an amazing story of transformation and one entirely consistent with the message of Romans 12:  "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.". 

I've never been one to embrace memorization, thinking of it more as the stuff of religion rather than way to ingest the vital bread of life.  I want that to change.  Here are two:

I will meditate on his precepts and consider his ways - Psalms 119:15

Commit your way to the lord.  Trust in him and he will do this.  He will cause your righteousness to be like the dawn and the justice of your cause to shine like the noonday sun. - Psalm 37:5-6

May it be - all for God's purpose.