It's Not about Having a Perfect Diet

     

There's so much to learn on this side of Heaven: how much to eat, and when; how often we can have a favorite unhealthy food; what's truly a blessing for us to eat; and how much we can be thankful for God's kind Grace on the a-little-less-than-healthy choices we sometimes need to make.

All over this world of ours, we're growing to have a little more awareness of God's Grace on our foods. We can thank Heaven for the healthy stuff we can only eat occasionally. And most of us can thank Heaven for the milk and eggs that help fortify us almost each day.

But some of us, like me, need to learn more moderation. And we ought to start talking with others about the moderation we already have.

When it comes to me and bread, for example, I'm not very moderate. I'll eat a lot - a lot! - of the wrong breads, every day, if given the chance. I have the potential to go for a large, factory-processed honey bun, every day, if I don't watch myself, and that's despite the fact that I know those honey buns are made of a fine cake flour and other stuff that a body digests so quickly, that it all (right away!) converts to sugars that put a sudden heavy load on those organs that are trying to handle my blood sugar.

And I know the same about the type of bread and the type of sugar used to make canned ravioli. But if there's ravioli like that to spare, and I'm having a difficult day, and I'm stranded for lunch, that's what I have to be thankful for. Yet it's days like this that remind me how much we need to do better than we are.

When we're thanking God for bread each day (both the bread of His word and the bread that helps us to physically live), we ought to be sure we're thankful. We ought to be sure we're thankful, from our heart of hearts, for whatever it is - thankful whatever it is has come from a place of Grace, and that whatever it is will help sustain us and help shape our sense of peace, thankfulness, and sometimes joy.

We also can be thankful for skills gained and lessons learned on those days we participate in preparing our own meals. Of all the things to be angry about while we're living this life, learning through food preparation isn't anything to protest!

In fact, did you know preschool babies as young as a year old, now, are dabbling in the kitchen - and not only at home? Before COVID, some preschools were having family-style meals, where toddlers were learning to appreciate selecting vegetables to eat at the lunch table, or were growing to like putting fresh lettuce on their individual sandwiches, for example.

Those babies were becoming more mindful and contented about food choices that were good for every day, instead of expecting foods that would have been candy-like, every day.

And some preschools took that a little further. Some encouraged their children by showing them the work that goes into cooking from scratch, and the fun in participating. That's something that has the potential to help a child develop, from an early age, in so many ways!

Just a few strengths built by participating in food-preparation tasks:

• Having stronger fine-motor skills (Fine-motor skills are those that give us dexterity, hand-eye coordination, and overall control of small muscles, including those muscles that help us use our fingers. Internet sources like WebMD say we need fine-motor skills in order to stir or mix food, for example, and imply early development of those skills helps better suit us for more complex tasks, such as playing instruments or participating in sports. But that's not all!);

• Having more aptitude to stand or sit still to engage in a task;

• Developing an ability to keep on task longer;

• Being better able to do coordinated, start-and-stop tasks (such as pressing a rolling pin to start, and quickly stopping to change direction);

• Having an overall awareness that food needs work to prepare;

• Knowing it's fun to complete tasks in a group setting;

• And beginning to know there's more to our day-to-day than just eating whatever we see!

It takes thought to make our meals, and to make food more healthy (and tasty). But I do not mean to say we have to have perfect diets, low-fat everything, or anything else on that order.

Instead, I want to say, we can do better at with our everyday ways of living! We can be more aware and active in living a little better.

We don't have to be vegan. We don't have to have organic. We don't need expensive. And we don't have to ban butter and buttermilk. We just need to be more aware.

We may need to recognize there's not one fresh fruit on God's green earth, that will give anyone diabetes!

And we need to maybe think things like: That old, family teacake recipe is naturally low on sugar; the small ratio of sugar to flour makes it nearly two times lower on sugar than a sugar cookie; it has only half a cup of traditional buttermilk (spread over 40 to 50 cookies!); and it's tastier than bread, because of the citrus juice in the traditional buttermilk, and because the just right amount of butter and sugar combine and caramelize. It's a perfect occasional treat, without changing anything about it. It's much lower on butter and uses a healthier flour than croissants do. And it's better to have that SOMETIMES, than lots of factory-made cinnamon sticks from Pizza Hut.

We need to maybe know a little more about how we digest one food compared to another. And we just need to want better in our every day.

Amen?

Above All: Faith, Our Life and Our Covering

  

In troubled times, we may feel out of communion or severed from the vine we've known as life in Jesus. Situations may cause us to feel so far removed from Him, that we wonder when His love, truth, and unadulterated faith will walk this earth again.

We can't be certain whether prayers should be for His soon return, or for our deliverance back into the church uncorrupted. And we do not know whether to expect His return — or our deliverance from sins as the church — to be through Jesus, the Savior, in a person, or through Jesus, the Savior *, in a people. But we know, with certainty, this one thing:

But as for me, I know my Redeemer liveth, and at last He will stand upon the earth.

Job 19:25

Remember: In Him is true life, and He is meant to live in each of us as Christians.

 

 

***

* I can't be sure of A. G. Lotz's meaning, when she says our Heavenly maker is "racial." But I think maybe she means He created us; knows us; knew us long before we were born; knew how we would evolve as families of people (because, truly, we belong to only one "race" — the human race, and, spiritually, we are only one church); and that He smiled upon our ethnic diversity (not our sins!), the way a gardener smiles inwardly, knowing the diverse beauty his crops will produce.

Escaping Lies that Rob Us

 

 

Did you know U.S. President Harry Truman spent eleven years, as a young man, feeding cattle, gathering milk, and working in his family kitchen? He was a farmer who decided not to be a banker. And he isn't the only one.

At least 15 U.S. presidents were ranchers or dirt farmers, including father and son John Adams and John Quincy Adams. The 15 also include four who were in office during my lifetime; although, we cannot say Ronald Reagan was among those four. Reagan's ranch was a retreat, instead of a farm.

But Lyndon "LBJ" Johnson, who finished as president in 1969, kept in close contact with his farming business while in office. And he invited at least one foreign leader to visit.

More humbly, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, were quiet about their farm work — and Jefferson kept ranching, and Roosevelt kept farming, hands on, after the White House.

Of special note, Lincoln was so understanding of the importance of farming, that he gave our nation the Land Grants that established universities as centers for agricultural research and rural outreach and support.

Maybe two or three other of the 15 were more business managers than they ever were hands-on farmers. That includes men like James Monroe, whose Charlottesville, Virginia enterprise was built on slave labor.

A Higher Calling

But George Washington's is a more elusive story. Maybe we can't entirely be sure of Washington's role as a farmer. But we know he wasn't a perfect man. We know he had a mistress. We don't know his heart of repentance. Yet, we know he had some measure of Christian faith.

His faith was not full with spiritual sight. Washington apparently didn't understand the Christian church is the "seed of Abraham," spiritually.

Instead, he believed — with childlike faith — that those still in the Hebrew tradition were Abraham's "stock" or seed. And he felt they were blessed as such.

Yet, as a subtext, I get the feeling Washington may have seen some American slaves as destined for inheritance in Christ. And I get the feeling he saw himself as a tutor or parental figure — a shepherd — in the lives of some of those who lived at the Mount Vernon plantation he was faithful to steward or to own.

According to brief information at mountvernon.org, Washington was sympathetic toward slaves and wanted freedom for them. In the story of one Mt. Vernon slave, a seamstress, there was only one whipping in 14 years, and that was with a twig from a hickory tree.

Mt. Vernon slaves tended to be social and visited family and friends at other plantations. They worked hard and apparently were not punished for frequent, small thefts in course of working.

Many also apparently attended church services at local sites away from the plantation.

Washington and wife, Martha, again seemed sympathetic. Washington had inherited the plantation and the slave tradition while he was a young child. Martha had inherited slaves, by law, as part of her late husband's estate. Both seemed to want freedom for the slaves, but, by will — or law — only Washington's slaves (not those from Martha's late husband's estate) were able to be freed upon Washington's death.

And, while he still lived on this side of life, Washington seemed to recognize the law would be hard on slaves were they to escape his watch. His interest in reclaiming one escaped slave, may have been to ensure the boy would not be mistreated. When Washington posted a newspaper article asking for the boy's safe return, he was obligated, under law, to say the boy was his "property."

I think it's possible the very few adult slaves who did "escape" Mt. Vernon, may have been allowed to leave, on purpose. Otherwise, Washington seemed to have Christian hope for those who had refuge there.

I suspect Washington unwittingly had the same hope for slaves at Mt. Vernon as he had for those souls he thought were the "stock" of Abraham, as an article at mountvernon.org may imply. This article may imply that Washington secretly wanted slaves to have their own plots of land, based on the Bible prophecy that says, "but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid."

Washington, in his heart of hearts, known only to God, may have wanted emancipated slaves to enjoy the same fruits as those he thought were Abraham's "stock."

Washinton's Mt. Vernon and its legacy was the exception in early American life — not the rule. In fact, in the brutal South, the law didn't allow slaves to read and write. But George Washington, upon being appointed to lead the Continental Army during the American Revolution, was kind toward Massachusetts slave Phillis Wheatley, who dedicated a poem to his appointment.

It's hard to imagine anyone from Mt. Vernon was denied the human right to read and learn, but I imagine fear of the law kept the Washingtons quiet about any learning among those of whom maybe they considered themselves guardians.

After all, the New Testament holds that the law is only temporary in the believer's life, but then comes awareness, independence, and freedom, including freedom to apply one's knowledge.

 

Escaping Today's Madness

I don't know about anyone else, but I, for one, am weary of today's reverse racism. I'm tired of the devil's accusations toward every person or group who isn't on a "progressive" platform.

I'm weary of accusations that every thing of American legacy is evil, when in fact it's the accuser who often is on the side of evil!

Recently, in our city in Louisiana, a Civil War commemorative monument was removed from the courthouse lawn. And that was well and good. But, now, there are gripes that a gracious, old oak tree at the courthouse is at least symbolic of a past lynching. Some even accuse the tree of being the actual tool of an old, publicized lynching.

But those accusers are souls tormented by the troubled, long-ago past. Those are souls who haven't known the truth, light, and wisdom of Christ Jesus. Those are souls too tormented by evil thoughts, to recognize Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists alike were a past council for good in cities like ours, and that faith could get things done, quietly (including the removal of a wronged tree).

Just think: There has been as much good in our history, as there has been evil.

After all, without light and faith in Jesus, nothing would have prospered for us as a nation, today's darkness would have eclipsed our faith long ago — and the devil's schemes to destroy our faith memories, to hollow and decay our souls, to corrupt Christian marriages, to change our children, to end devout living among unmarried people, to subject us to hell as a way of life, and to end freewill doings in favor of socialism, all would have taken much of the church long ago.

The Bible does warn against a time when the church deliberately would be worn down, when sanctification would be worn out; and it appears in many ways, that we may be at that day.

"But thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:57)

Faithful, Green Grandmother

 

 

One of us remembers a garden in the fertile soil of the alley behind the back fence. Another of us remembers gardens were kept near the clothes-drying lines in the back yard, and also near the street inside the nextdoor neighbors' fence. The nextdoor neighbors, the Greens, let grandpa garden in their treeless yard, I'm assuming so he would have more daylight than under his pecan trees in the alley and back yard.

But it wasn't community gardening. It was just living. And one of my younger cousins was so fond of the childhood memory, that she has based her career on the memory.

Our grandparents were equal parts faithful and earthy, I think. My grandpa, from a distance across the den, could smell like the earth of the back yard, instead of like the petro plant where he worked. His car also smelled earthy.

My grandmother also had distinctive odors about her: usually the smell of garlic and a pleasant bacteria that seemed to be particular to her. You see, she didn't use antibacterial soaps, nor very much bleach, ever.

My grandmother was "green" long before green living became popular. She used simple Ivory soap for washing up, and dishwater and products like vinegar, soda, and Comet for cleaning. And her house smelled like nothing. Her linens and house were odorless, except for cooking. ... Grandmother didn't need cleaning chemicals and fabric softeners, and I never knew her or my grandpa to get sick, not even when she was taking care of a sick grandchild.

Believe it or not, being in the outdoors, close to the earth, and having a diet rich in garlic and fresh vegetables from rich soil and good sun, helped my grandparents, and others nearby, to thrive.

Not being exposed to a lot of cleaning chemicals that cause normal, healthy, disease-fighting bacteria to die, also was probably a help to my grandparents and other elders. The healthy bacteria that thrived in garden soils, not only likely killed unhealthy germs from animals, but probably also helped boost my grandparents' natural immunity.

In fact, some soil bacteria, in places throughout the earth, is so potent with good bacteria, that a few scientists believe they are getting closer to defeating some types of infections that are difficult to get rid of. That's probably why many of the Irish have believed the soils of their homelands are nearly sacred — because those soils had been curative in the ancient and even recent past.

But if the science of healthy soil is not enough proof of God's blessing on a heritage of rich earth, try to believe on the way Jesus opened the eyes of a man who was blind, apparently from an infection.

Jesus put mud — from a certain place, not an infested place — onto the man's eyes. (We don't know for how long.) And, of course, Jesus being God with us, the man was healed.

The Hope in Seeds

 

 

 

Heaven gives us so much. Seed-bearing plants are one of the very first blessings the Bible mentions. Seeds are something an aunt and I look forward to seeing, with hope in heart.

My aunt likes to gather pecans each year. Pecans are seeds of a species of hickory tree native to the southern United States and northern Mexico.

Fruits (including tree nuts), vegetables, and grain plants like rice, all make seeds — unless they've been genetically modified or cultivated not to have seeds.

Although seeds are earthy, not heavenly, seeds do tell us some things about our heavenly Father's nature. Seeds are evidence of many things the Bible helps us know about Heaven's hope for us.

Some lessons we find in gathering plant seeds:

• Heaven means for us to have more than we've been given. Through making small investments to sow plant seeds, instead of eating everything we receive, we put ourselves to task in an unstressful and a hopeful way. Sowing seeds blesses us to get some fresh air, and to hope for a kind of blessing that can't be gained from just being given something. God blesses the work of our heart and hands.
• God is naturally generous in ways none of us ever can be. That's why there's an old gospel song that says we can't beat God giving, no matter how hard we try. (So, Satan, stop wearing us out to make us give!) God is the one who gives more than enough, so that not a single one of us, trusting in Him, needs to be without. There is more than enough plant seed in earth, to help us live — especially when we're trusting in Him.
• God cares for each of us, individually. When Jesus taught those who would listen, He said each sparrow has more than enough. (Each sparrow has more than enough insects and seeds, for living.) Then, the Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul's ministry, said not to be anxious for anything. Jesus says Heaven knows our needs before we've said anything at all about a need. God even knows those blessings that bring us the most cheer in heart. And we all need cheer.
• When we cheerfully receive, God knows our little giving will be heartfelt and cheerful, no matter what may be wrong in our lives. That's why God has put something of hope in us about seeds! It's not a carnal thing!
• Heaven sees seeds of human flesh, differently than seeds of plants. The Bible even counts it a curse to waste human seed, which is meant, in Christ, to be given one man to one spouse. One type of seed is personal, while sowing plant seeds is for us to do universally (but tamely, or in order). Amen.
  
• Seeing how freely Heaven provides plant seeds, many of us want to freely give of our fruit — both our spiritual fruit, and the natural fruit we've grown ourselves. That's just a natural response in us, when we're allowed to live and sow as Heaven intends, working with our own hands and heart, as the Bible says. (By the way, one sure way to know a gardening business is Christian-owned, is the prices charged for a tiny amount of seed!)
• Plant seeds prove that, because God is good, so we can be good. God's abundance discourages ungodly behaviors, doesn't it? Worldly abundance may cause all kinds of greed and oppression, but God's abundance is different. ... I tell you, if there is a people who covet and often steal even simple plant seeds, I think there's a line of scripture to describe them. I think they're called "children of disobedience."
  
• After all, being fruitful instead of dependent, dogged, stolen from, or persecuted, helps prepare us, personally, for greater works or responsibilities (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).
  

Isn't the God who we live for, good?

Eating with Joy

 

  

 

This isn't the type post I ever hoped for this blog. But there comes a day when you just feel like you have to lay everything at Jesus's feet. And that's the focus of this outpouring today.

Dear, Lord, help me speak truth, and to walk in your truth. Amen. ... That's the kind of post this is, today.

I remember when I first heard someone say, with conviction, that we were coping with "a trick of the enemy." A fatherly cousin said just that one day.

So, today, I stand ready to say that, often, when someone is frustrating your faith for living free of children of disobedience, your faith for escaping horrors, your faith for witnessing Jesus, your faith for moving forward — when a schemer points at your Heaven-sent provision and plan, and points the word "scheme" at you instead of at his or her own self — you may be coping with an enemy (even an enemy within the church).

That enemy may preach a false gospel that money is power, that being naked is being free, and that the born-again were meant to taste of death.

And you just need to rebuke that enemy. You can rebuke him or her through a direct response, or simply by the way you keep hoping and witnessing and reaching forward to live.

You can cry out that Jesus gave us instructions to remember His sacrifice in a clean, not a bloody, way: that He has given us unleavened bread and the juice of grapes in place of death and blood.

You can cry out that the light of Heaven has no communion with spiritual darkness. You can cry out that Heaven's instructions to Peter were to trust the Lord's judgment (not this world's judgment, but the Holy Spirit's judgment) about meats Heaven has made clean — meats made clean for food, meats sparing us the taste of death.

You can cry out that every good and perfect blessing is from Heaven.

You can cry out that the disciples had not eaten on that very long day when the multitude was fed, and that a boy's fish may have become needed sustenance for all of them — all of the disciples — while those among the multitude were each satisfied with a small portion of bread, because they had eaten at home that day (and then had been spiritually filled by witnessing Jesus's sayings and doings ... on that very long day). That seems to be the most possible truth about that day, according to the King James account of the gospel according to Mark. You can cry out that the multitude went home, where thy likely did eat again. And you can cry out that that's why many churches have a homestyle meal together sometimes, after a long day at worship, even if they've had communion at worship.

You can cry out that God never intended anyone's physical well-being to depend upon a portion of communion alone, but upon every word of our new covenant, including words encouraging us to "eat."

When an enemy within says our Christian joy depends upon lack and tribulation, you can cry out that our joy depends on having met Jesus! Our joy doesn't depend on evil! Our joy survives or persists despite evil. And, if you don't believe that, search the scriptures. Look at the immediate joy in the eunuch from Ethiopia. Look at Paul's joy in remembering the days he first knew his salvation. And then, remember your own walk of faith in Christ, if, indeed, you've walked in Him.

If you've walked in Jesus, you know.

And Heaven knows.

What Is Prayer?

 

It's a little annoying, that so many websites and podcasts answer an apparently popular question: How can anyone pray without ceasing?

It takes patience to listen and to read many of the posts, because, when we know the God of Heaven, it just never occurs to us that anyone would not know what it is to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Some people envision a life of non-stop prayer, a life of becoming more like nuns and monks in order to communicate more with God. But that's not the scripture's meaning.

Another scripture says it another way: The steadfast prayer of the righteous avails much: steadfast prayer gets results.

When I got saved, when I received my salvation and knew so for sure, the sermon that day mentioned a woman who prayed for her husband for decades, until he, too, understood God is real.

She prayed for decades. Clearly, this woman knew something about her husband's heart, that caused her not to give up on praying.

And it's not that anyone is supposed to wear themselves out in prayer, it's not that prayers should be long and dramatic, it's not that prayers should be hands pointed together to make a steeple pointing to Heaven, and it's not that we have an obligation never to give up on praying for each and every person we've ever prayed for (Jeremiah 14:11, 2 Kings 9:22, Galatians 5:19-21, 1 Corinthians 6:10-11, Ephesians 2:1, 1 John 5:12-16).

When Paul told the church not to pray for a brother whose sins lead to death, he meant this was a brother so determined to sin, that his sins would take not only his earthly life but would also lead to his damnation beyond death — and not only his damnation, but the damnation of other souls, as well.

When Paul gave that verdict, he also said all [godly] doings are "lawful" for the church to do; but not all godly doings are effective in bringing someone to righteousness.

Clearly, something about that brother's godlessness, compelled Paul to ask the church to stop praying for the man. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, Paul preached. But, clearly, prayer won't bring all souls to faith in the Lord.

And that reminds me of one of the articles I read last night. It was an uncomfortable article for me to read. It was an essay by a United Nations worker who had survived the Rwandan genocide.

She not only gave praise to having prayed to Saint Mary, but she preached a kind of infinite forgiveness — not recognizing that the men who she forgave, were men who had actually given her mercy, and not recognizing that every man is not capable of stopping himself from sinning, not every man is capable of feeling remorse for having sinned or, on the other hand, thankfulness to Jesus for forgiveness of sins.

Clearly, that faithful woman was fortunate to have fallen into the hands of people who were able to know Jesus one day. Yet, sadly, not everyone is going to be saved.

Some among us are just that determined to be bound for hell. And there comes a point when, truly, we stop praying for them.

That was my feeling when the kidnappings in Nigeria didn't stop. That was my feeling when the bombs in Ukraine kept killing. That was my feeling when Ukraine's president steadfastly called for weapons and money. And that's my feeling, having suffered years of tongue lashings that only lead to hell.

But what can I pray, on a sunshiny Easter day?

• I can pray children will thank Heaven for the warm sunshine upon their skin.

• I can pray that children christened (or pledged to Heaven) as babies, will know complete baptism — having become adults who are able to make that heartfelt, public decision.

• I can pray families who have lost loved-ones, and workplaces that have lost co-workers, to COVID-19, to cancer, to murder, will be comforted and will have peace.

• I can pray for my and our children's release from hell's influence and grip.

• I can pray women will know bodily respect: freedom from any and all molestation.

• And I can pray enemies will cease expecting prayer and praise to be on dark, godless terms.

Those are my steadfast prayers, today.

And I can pray whenever there's a touch of God to remind me. I can pray while working in the yard. I can pray while laying down for sleep (Deuteronomy 6:7). I can pray while in the shower. And I can pray with thanksgiving while eating.

I can pray the enemy is a defeated foe. I can pray about tongues that rise up in condemnation of victims like me. And I can keep praying, with forgiveness, for a loved-one's, friend's, and neighbor's traveling grace and peace.

 

I also can pray for continued work in ministry. I can pray someone gets the message, today, that Jesus didn't label us His "sheep" out of a desire to see everyone on their knees looking up to Him, as in the woman touching the hem of His gown. But He calls us His sheep, because we've faithfully followed after Him, even walking up the kinds of mountains He retreated to at His deepest times of prayer.