What did God say to you today? It depends on what you were waiting for God to say. I have a friend who is so intent on seeing - I know, hearing? seeing? which is it? Just bear with me a minute, after all they're both senses we don't often get right - anyway, my friend is so intent on seeing a pileated woodpecker that after a day of birding he, "hasn't seen anything!" But meanwhile my lifelist has gotten longer with warblers, orioles, etc.

My friend wants to "get on" through the forest and "find his" bird. I like to take the sit awhile and wait approach, see what reveals itself to me. When I ask myself, "What has God said to me today?" I realize I'm better at birding than waiting on the Lord. What has God said to you today?

No, no, not meeting with the Lord although I confess it is sometimes more hurried or later in the day than I like. I'm talking about blogging. All because a friend passed along a couple of blogs by someone who's trying to post daily.

Why in the world would you want to do that? Well, the statistics that they'd already gathered about visitors to their blogs, etc was pretty interesting. Definitely up, the experiment may still be too new to say whether or not those numbers will stay up.

Think about the Apostles. Which one of them would embrace blogging? Which one would blog daily? Would you..?

After a week that fit one of the seed groups from the parable of the sower -choked out of my morning quiet time by the "cares of the world" - I'm asking myself: Is  time with Lord more meaningful if it was a habit or not a habit?

How meaningful could/would the time be if my mind was constantly on the clock? Would it really be a time for the Lord to speak to me if after 15 minutes I said, "Ok, next item!" and moved on to something else? Is it just a justification to say that I can get the time by meditating on the hidden word when I know that meditating is going to be impacted by the day's schedule as well? Who does the weeding around here anyway?

It's always the thing we don't want to give up that trips us up. Ok, always, like any absolute we use so freely today, may not be quiet accurate, but it feels like always. It probably doesn't matter what the excuse is, and they like the demom at Gerasenes, are legion. In fact "but" usually is a good indicator that one of them is getting ready to speak. You know, "I'd spend more time... "but" - meet a legionaire". And, yes, I know that often we feel that we really are too busy, too committed, too something or we lack knowledge, we lack understanding, we lack something.

I don't know how we escape those "things" that often in life we allow to seem legitimate or that aren't clearly (should I keep my large SUV because it has a great safety rating, I need the space, or should I get the hybrid and have a new debt...?) answered directly in the Word. The ones we try to justify where there is some guidance although not directly addressed (overeating, buying the Lamborghini) are less justifiable. Then, there are the things that clearly are addressed but we're still unwilling to give up.

So, I've come back full circle. We have things in our lives that we hide, shelter, lie about, to protect. Like a child with forbidden candy we stubbornly try to somehow justify and hold on. I wonder if Jesus' message to Simon in Luke 7 is as pointed as it first appears, that the woman had greater sin therefore she has more to be thankful for  and will love Christ more. I also wonder if the sarcasm we can read into it, she outwardly has greater sin but you are just putting up a good front is the point. Maybe it's more a "widow's mite" lesson. Simon, you feel good because compared to others -this woman- you're not such a bad person - just a few little sins but like the widow's mite you'll have to give up relatively more than this woman because you'll have to give up all, therefore you need to love me more than she does to be willing to let go. How much do we love?

I cannot get my mind to settle this morning, to stay focused and move on. It drifts here and there, running in circles, trying to pull me away from what I'm intent on doing. Those of you who've had a dog may know the type of behaviour I'm talking about. Not playfulness, not mischeivious, but the "come, come, let me show you" - darting off, coming back, circling, darting, coming back - that leads you eventually where it wants you to be. It's always, to see, or to do.

Today, my mind will not allow me to move ahead. It circles, yelps, darts off when I try to lead it along. Moving when I force it, but always darting back toward the thing it wants me to see.

What I'd missed in yesterday's quiet time. Back to Luke 6:47, when we should have been moving ahead in chapter 7. Of course I thought, I don't need to go back there, I know that story. You know it too, lay a good foundation and you can withstand the onslaught of life. Why go back there? What was I missing?

Oh, of course, "listens to my words and puts them into practice." (Luke 6:47b NET) No, that wasn't it. I still got pulled back. What then? When I allowed it to happen, the stopping where I was led and the waiting, watching - have you ever notice how when you're waiting and watching eventually you start thinking deeply (maybe, it's just a "guy thing" - the let's get it done, move on mentality - that doesn't allow for deep thinking). No, it was the "...who dug down deep..." (Luke 6:48b NET) that I was supposed to "see".

One of the first job's I ever had was working for a small contractor and we were doing site work (moving earth, preparing the site for building) and my job was to prepare the footing trench. With a shovel. By hand. And it wasn't easy. It was "back breaking work". I went home every night exhausted, fell into bed, and slept soundly.

So, today we miss an important part of that message because we don't know or think about what those words, dug down deep, meant to early believers. Yes, hearing God's word and putting it into practice is an important part of it, but it's the hard labor of digging down deep, by hand, moving tons of earth by hand, leveling the ground, by hand, getting dirty, sweaty, exhausted, keeping at while the blisters form, pop, bleed, heal and your hands strengthen, become fit for the work they're doing - and you become skilled in weilding the word. Then you're prepared to lay a solid foundation. To build upward.

I had decided earlier this year that I'd work through the New Testament for my quiet time, and this morning arrived at the beginning of Luke. A nice, orderly account, complied so Theophilus, and then of course we, would know exactly what went down. Maybe that introduction helped focus my attention as I started reading, but for some reason two little words stood out in Luke "can" and "will". They've got me thinking about imagineering.

We think of imagineering with Disney in front of it although it was Alcoa in the 1940's that made the word, for a time, a household phrase. Wherever it came from it's a wonderful word. It breathes creativity, the idea of stepping beyond the boundaries, of achieving so much more, imagination constantly expanding beyond itself - the thing we had as children and lost along the way. Who wasn't a super man or super woman in their childish imagination?

And God, or a least God's right hand angel Gabriel, is not happy about our lack of imagineering. If Gabriel had his way we'd all spend most of our lives silenced, not allowed to speak, muted. When Gabriel says "Shut Up!" to Zechariah he's not exclaiming incredulity - I think Gabriel would always speak what's hip to today's generation - he is literally telling Zechariah to "Zip It!!" because Zech, I'm feeling a lot of empathy for Zechariah just now, Zech has lost the ability to imagineer.

If I haven't lost you already, here's where I'm going with this. Zech says in response to Gabriel's message to him "How can this be?", opposed to Mary's response "How will this be?" Zech has lost his imagineering, he can't even conceive of the idea of conceiving. It's clear that being childless is not what they imagined when he and Elizabeth married. Now that he has the one thing they've missed in their married life offered to him he's going to squelch it with all the reasons it can't happen. He's going to turn off the very idea of it. He is going to kill it... If he keeps going, so Gabriel says "Shut Up!" and makes sure that Zech can't foul it up before it's an accomplished fact.

Mary on the other hand, her mind is already, as soon as Gabriel tells her, filled with the reality of the child she'll carry. She is asking, "How will it happen?" because she sees it already accomplished. Her imagineering is still fully functional. Gabriel clearly encourages imagineering when he reminds Mary "For nothing will be impossible with God" (Luke 1:37 NET)

Crank up your imagineering, begin again today imagining what will be possible with God! We don't need to see how it can be done, only imagine and let God create.

Lemmings have been on my mind lately. It seems that I use to hear more about lemmings years ago. I remember my favorite teacher, Mr. T.F. Davies, telling us not to be like lemmings, blindly following a leader to our own peril and death. I could digress here and dwell on lemmings but that's not really where my mind is at this morning, it's on lemming like behavior and Joshua (1:8), another of my favorite teachers.

I've been making my way through the gospels this month and picked up at Mark 8 today. No BIG message here this morning, just a couple of passages (Mark 9:23, 24 and 9:32) that required some application of Joshua 1:8. Because Joshua 1:8 takes time I don't know yet what the Lord will "say to me" about how they apply to my life but they did get me thinking about lemmings. Or rather, the process of meditating on God's Word, got me onto lemmings... Ok, ok, where am I going with this?

The thought that, I could skip all this meditation stuff, I could just use one of the many tools available today (an app, a web site, a broadcast message, etc.) or I could just wait until my pastor preaches on it. And, that's when I thought of lemmings streaming by. Not blindly exactly, but unknowingly following the herd, and the herd somewhere ahead following a "leader". Then, as Mr Davies told us many times, it's over the cliff and drowning in the sea. A great image, one that motivated me for years to not follow the crowd. But the reality of lemming behaviour is an even more important lesson.

It seems that lemmings aren't going willy-nilly over the cliff to their deaths. Researchers now think that lemmings know they're heading into, entering, deep water. The problem is that they are strong swimmers but don't know how long they'll have to swim, how strongly they'll have to swim... It isn't getting into the water that's the problem, it's not being able to individually weigh and evaluate what getting in the water means.

And, finally, I'm back at Joshua 1:8 and why it reminds me of lemmings hurrying past. It's easy and quick to let someone else lead us to an understanding of what God is saying, how it applies to our lives. It takes time and effort to meditate on our "book of the law" so that we can "be careful to do according to all that is written in it." It's only when we find those "what do you mean?" messages and aren't afraid to apply Joshua 1:8 that we avoid being led into more than we have the ability to safely swim through. The disciples could have personally asked Christ to help them understand (Mk 9:32), we can too.

So, there I was in Mark, Chapter 4 this morning, all nice and comfortable - smug even because unlike the disciples I knew what the parables meant - even as I was about to move on to Chapter 5 I was still feeling a little superior because I could answer the question. You know the one, "Who then is this? Even the wind and sea obey him!" (Mk 4:41). Silly disciples, isn't it obvious that this is God's Son with all the power and authority of God.

But then, this little voice is going, "That's not the question Ray, that's not the question, Ray, that's..." You get the idea. What is the question in Mark 4? It's "Am I cowardly? Do I still not have faith?" Because at first that answer seems obvious, of course I have faith, faith in Chist as my Lord and Saviour. But, the voice kept asking.

So here's the question: Was Christ asking whether they had faith enough to trust that they'd get through the storm or was he asking why they didn't have faith enough to do what he'd just done and command the storm? To be or not to be? That is always the question.

As my to-do list was screaming at me for attention this morning I got to thinking about how and why its voice has gotten so loud in my life. No, no, I know that at my age I should be doing a little less and shouldn't have a to-do list. But, I'm not slowing down and it often seems more gets added to the list than gets cleared from it.

None of that changes the fact that the thing was screaming for attention. Then I noticed a mind-map I'd been doodling the other week and saw that I'd written down TO-BE LIST. I don't even remember thinking about that at the time I was mapping, no idea why or where that idea came from. Well, of course I know, if I didn't you wouldn't be seeing this post here now would you? But, I had just jotted it down and hadn't done anything with it. Until this morning...

Suddenly my screaming to-do list got real quite, kind of a 'if I just shut up for a while he'll move off that idea and we can get back to work" type of quite. Like a rabbit beside the trail, waiting, silent and still to see which way you're going to move. Poor to-do list, I've moved the wrong way and trapped it. Now it's squirming and fighting to get loose so it can run its merry course. Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to kill or harm it - it is after all full of important and worthwhile things that need to get done. It just needs a little taming and the TO-BE list is just the one to do it. So now the to-do must serve the to-be's and I'll be leaving the blotter with the mind-map on top of the desk to remind me that the priority is to-be and the to-do's must serve that purpose. There's another great day ahead!