Faithwalk – EAST WILLOW PLACE

How to Celebrate Easter = How to Remember the Truth

Because Resurrection Sunday is so important to our family, I have planned a joyous feast for my littles – special foods that take extra time and care. I purposefully use special decorations and prepare for traditions we only do this day each year.

The “Garden Tomb” (complete with russet potato tomb hollowed out with a spoon) is ready for the bright floral transformation tomorrow. Toothpick soldiers stand guard now, ready to flee or fall down by morning.
The bread dough is rising, the eggs have been peeled, the créme Anglaise for the trifle is chilling. We will hide little treats and gifts (each with a color-coded piece of yarn) for a joyful hunt my children declare is their most favorite tradition of all –

And yet.

If these things do not point to the Truth – this celebration is a mere shadow of the Celebration of all celebrations we will join, this feast is to remind us of the Feast of all feasts with our risen and conquering King in the world to come – then it holds as much substance as a marshmallow chick.

In the feasting and rejoicing, the delighting of delicious food and new life and remembering our risen Lord, it is good to not just look back, but to look forward.

We celebrate to remember that we are going home someday to an incredible Celebration that will never end.

We feast to remember we will feast at our King’s table – with all the host of faithful witnesses who have gone before us and also those who now wait for him with us.

We joyously sing with our fellow sojourners in Sunday services to remember we will one day roar his praise in our native tongue in our true Homeland.

And we let our children to seek for that which is sweet and precious to try to show that our Lord was once hidden but can be found for those who search for him – and that he is most precious of all, and sweetest of all delightful things.

It is through these traditions and celebrations and joyful feastings we create a space for a deep homesickness to rise up in our heart and the hearts of those with us. (1 Peter 2:9-12)

Jesus rose from death so that we can live without fear or shame, now covered by his righteousness like royal robes, ambassadors for his Kingdom and crowned heirs of his glory. (2 Cor. 5:20)

We celebrate our King’s resurrection to remind ourselves that this day is unlike any other, and is the one thing that gives purpose and meaning to our lives. (1 Cor. 15:12-19)

Let us celebrate so fiercely, so joyously, and so weighted with the coming glory we will share, that those who are without this joy cannot help but see the fire and light in us, and ask us the reason for the hope we carry. (1 Peter 3:15)

A blessed and joyous Resurrection Sunday celebration to you and your loves.

HE IS RISEN INDEED!

Wear your crown, carry your sword. -Maria Miller
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New Hope for When You’re Weary & Discouraged

_{Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash}

The guys were taking a night to try to find normal again.

A crazy rollercoaster of experiences and emotions in the last couple weeks had shattered their world – and now they still felt unsure of which way was up. More importantly, they were unsure of what they should do next.

So they went fishing – something they knew well, something routine and ordinary.

But things still seemed askew and off – because no matter their efforts and expertise, after working all night there were only dripping empty nets, growling stomachs, and bleary, red-rimmed eyes in the grey, early morning light.

Then, a stranger walking in the early morning mist on the nearby shore called out in a friendly, fatherly way, “Hey guys, catch anything?”

Ruefully they called back, “Nope, nothing – not even after being out all night!”

Probably with a smile in his voice, the stranger called back, “Try the right side of the boat.”

Maybe they rolled their eyes at this advice, maybe they were too tired and hopeless to argue. Maybe they figured it was just so inane it was worth a shot, so they did as he said…

And immediately their net almost slipped from their hands with the weight of the heavy catch of fish that filled it to nearly bursting.

Then – after recognizing the stranger as Jesus, their newly-risen Savior and Teacher – the suddenly rejoicing, energized men were welcomed from the coldness of the morning sea to a brightly flickering fire on the beach.

Then Jesus himself, the Lord of life and Creator of the Universe, served them a hot breakfast of grilled fish and bread. (John 21:1-13)

He who should have been served instead tenderly served the same men who had recently abandoned him, denied him, and hid from being recognized as his followers. He who could have sharply reproached instead showed heart-breaking kindness.

This gracious, humble, and loving Savior is the one who cares for you and me in all our weakness and brokenness and strugglings today. When we work wearily without success, when we feel hopeless and uncertain and discouraged – He is the one who asks us to tell the truth of our lack (“Nope, we got nothing!”), and then to try again – with him.

Any outcome of our efforts is his gift. “For without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

And then he welcomes us to sit with him and be warmed and fed – and he himself serves us.

This is our Lord – and in his kindness he is lovely beyond words.

I pray that you are comforted and fed today in the rich satisfaction of knowing the kindness of our King – and find in his kindness the hope to go on.

_{-Wear your crown. Carry your sword.}
Maria

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How to Be the Story of the Glorious Kingdom, Part 3

… We are citizens of heaven, and are called to live in a manner worthy of our King and his Kingdom (Philippians 1:27).

So how do we do this?

The simple answer is far from easy: We become the People of his Book.

To consider the Holy Bible as the highest treasure of our hearts and the strongest connection to our King and our homeland is the simplest, most straight-forward way to live out our calling as Ambassadors.

The Spirit-inspired Scriptures are to be in our thoughts, words and actions – every day. We need to carefully, sincerely, and reverently read them, ponder them and pray them. We are to sing them, teach them, write them and live them.

But most of all, we are to love the Scriptures – because if we do, the rest will follow.

"And now, what does the LORD your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the LORD your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul. And you must always obey the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good." (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)

Ambassadors appointed on behalf of their nation do not lose their distinctive language, traditions, customs, philosophies or citizenship merely because they are stationed in a foreign country. On the contrary – it is because they are constantly representing their homeland and government that they remain unmistakably different from the local culture around them.

We are called to live unmistakably different lives as citizens of Heaven.

We have been given the “Protocol Guidebook” of our nation’s customs, language, history, beliefs and laws – it deserves our daily, intentional, devoted study and thought. How else will we understand our own King’s laws? Speak our country’s language? How else can we explain to others why they should want to immigrate there, or how our King vastly surpasses any other ruler in excellence? How else can we accurately disciple and mentor other younger citizens (our children or any given to us to teach) so that they can one day fill their own appointments in their own embassies?

This should be our passionate desire – to be so deeply steeped in the Book of our King that if he should come on a visit of State, we would not be ashamed by how we have been representing him, but delighted to introduce the One we have so faithfully served to those around us.

And what joy to have those people say – “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.” (John 4:42)

Wear your crown. Carry your sword. – Maria

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The Story of the Glorious Kingdom, Part Two

Photo by Luis Fernando Felipe Alves on Unsplash

If you, like me, claim Jesus to be your Savior and King, the Story of the Glorious Kingdom (click on it to read if you missed it!) is not just a fairy tale.

It’s OUR story.

WE have been set free from the dark kingdom and are now commissioned as Ambassadors of the Glorious Kingdom. This is OUR King’s book, written in the language of the Kingdom, carrying His instructions and teaching us all we need to carry out our calling as His representatives.

The definition of “Ambassador” is: a person of high-rank appointed by their ruler to represent them and their country for a special and temporary assignment in a foreign country. (I checked Wikipedia)

This is the perfect description for who we are called to be as followers of Christ:

Adopted into his family as sons and daughters of the Most High God (Ephesians 1:4-5) – we’re nobility personified! We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, Peter says (1 Peter 2:9) – those called to mediate between God and the people who don’t yet know him as King.

We’ve been appointed to represent our ruler and his kingdom: 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 says God has given us this task of reconciling people to him, emphatically stating: “We are Christ’s ambassadors.”

It’s a unique assignment to each of us, because we each are unique creations, specially placed in the circumstances, locations, and in the communities we are because we each have a unique work to do: 1 Corinthians 12:12-26 compares us as a group of believers as a body with many varied parts, all working to accomplish a unified goal. Ephesians 2:10 declares we each have been created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that God himself prepared before time for us each to do!

It’s a temporary assignment because we each don’t know how long we have or when we will be either placed somewhere else, or called back to our homeland. Our lives are not our own, and tomorrow is not promised. Therefore we work each day we’ve been given as best we can, knowing we might be called home tomorrow! Psalm 90:12 prays that we might know the brevity of our lives and live wisely because of it.

We’re to consider ourselves as foreigners and outsiders because this world is not our home and we are not to hold onto it too tightly – we are citizens of heaven, and are called to live in a manner worthy of our King and his Kingdom (Philippians 1:27). 1 Peter 2:11 exhorts, “Dear friends, I warn you as temporary residents and foreigners to keep away from the worldly desires that wage war against your souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors… [so that] they will give honor to God when he judges the world.”

And the question likely burning in your mind now is… “HOW? How do we do this?” (Stay tuned…)

Wear your crown. Carry your sword. – Maria

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Relief = Happy? Maybe Not – What You REALLY Need Instead

We humans can be so short-sighted.

In a challenging situation or a season of suffering or hardship, all we care about is obtaining relief – and we think that if the challenge were to be removed, suddenly everything would be great. We would be so happy!

But is that true?

Exodus 17:1-7, written by Moses, tells about a time when the people of Israel camp in the wilderness at a location called Rephidim. “At the Lord’s command,” the text declares emphatically.

So what’s the problem?

There was no water at Rephidim.

For a large community of people, children, and animals, that’s a big problem.

Please note that these are the exact same people who saw the terrors of the ten plagues in Egypt and then the parting of the Red Sea only a few weeks prior. These folks saw the hand of God move mightily on their behalf, and have been following the moving pillars of cloud and fire – physical manifestations of God’s guidance – through the wilderness.

So with this new challenge, what do they do? They quickly turn in angry complaints to Moses, demanding for him to give them water.

Moses warns them to be quiet – clearly wanting them to respectfully ask and patiently wait to see the provision of God (as he had done so powerfully before), and reminds them not to test God.

But when they continue to feel the torment of strong thirst – they not only continue to argue but they attribute Moses (and therefore God, who is directing him) with harmful, hateful intent, saying “Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us, our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17: 3)

Their discomfort and suffering completely overwhelmed them – all they could focus on was their current misery and how it would vanish with what they craved – water.

The beleaguered Moses cries out to God asking what to do – and God tells him. “Walk out in front of the people. They accused me publicly, they will be answered publicly. Take the same staff that struck the Nile and turned water to blood – and bring some of the elders to join you. I will stand before you on the rock at Mount Sinai. Strike the rock, and the water will come gushing out – and then the people will be able to drink.” (Exodus 17: 5-6, my paraphrase)

Did you see that?

God himself would stand on the rock that would gush out water.

Why?

Because what the people needed more than water was the Presence of God.

In our own ongoing struggles, the challenges and sufferings of life in a sin-darkened world, it is so very easy to be forgetful of what we know to be true.

God is always and has always been faithful, AND it is by his direct guidance that we are exactly where we are in this place of lack or suffering or hardship.

Therefore it means we are to stop blaming other people, stop accusing God of harmful intent or careless indifference, and smash our idols of perceived comfort and relief.

Because what we need most, no matter how much we crave other things, is not relief from the suffering – it is HIMSELF.

David wrote Psalm 63 during his own time in the wilderness – I encourage you to pull out a Bible and pray this Psalm for yourself, asking the Spirit to make it genuinely true for your heart:

“Oh God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water…  Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!” (Psalm 63:1,3)

May we be a people who can sing this up to him in truth – even in a wilderness of no water and with suffering – that we find our God and his love better than life itself.

Wear your crown, carry your sword. – Maria

*(_{This post was inspired by John Piper’s excellent sermon “Water from the Rock for Undeserving People” from August 11, 2022, found here.})

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How to Know if You (Really) Love God

Let’s cut to the chase.

**The life of a person who is avidly and truly a believer of God and follower of Jesus Christ is not marked by whether they are living perfectly and free from sin, but whether or not that person is fiercely and faithfully fighting against sin**.

If marks of that battle are not evident, if there is no war declared, no clear sign of any ongoing fight underway – then that person is not someone who is following Jesus. Period.

When Jesus said in Matthew 5:28-29 that we should be gouging out eyes and whacking off hands and other extremities in our ferocious willingness to cut out (and off!) sin in our lives, we could expect to see the people who claim be Christians largely as a group of amputees, violently handicapped in multiple ways… unless, as John Piper states, Jesus must have had something “even more radical in mind than literal mutilation”. _{(Future Grace, Multnomah Publishers, 1995. “Faith in Future Grace vs. Lust”, pg. 330)}

(Whew! Everyone, it’s safe to come out now. Your hands and eyes can stay put.)

In Piper’s excellent book Future Grace, he explains that while we generally consider global issues and injustice and similar ‘big’ social problems as far more important than ‘minor’ sins like pornography or complaining or lying, Jesus sees things differently than we often do.

The ‘big’ problems are important, but it’s because they all relate to individual people. People, who are made in the image of God with eternal souls, have only two possible endings: forever in the New Heavens and Earth in the presence of God glorifying him, or forever in hell defying him. This is why people – with their eternal ability to honor God regardless of their actual earthly lifespan – are so important.

All the ‘big’ problems can kill the body. But the consequences of sins (like lust) that stalk and easily entangle can eternally condemn our souls – more terrifying than any earthly death.

This is a comfort to me. I am not expected to be perfect, nor am I chided by my Holy Father for stumbling when I do. But I am to consistently grip my sword and fight and to resist my sin with each new day that I am given here on Earth.

That resistance is what marks me as a faithful warrior who claims Christ as King.

“If you live by [your sinful nature’s] dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.” – Romans 8:13

Which brings me to the sword.

Ephesians 6:17 calls us to take up the sword of the Spirit – the Word of God.

If we are not faithfully, consistently and prayerfully opening the Bible and reading it with humility and teachable hearts, we are weaponless in the battle.

The Word of God is there to bring light and truth to our thinking so we see clearly. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) The truth of God’s Word helps us recognize the inherent deception of sin to satisfy and bring happiness. It helps us recognize the fully satisfying, delightfulness of God and brings the faith to trust in his promises. “You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.” (Psalm 16:11)

The role of God’s Word, Piper states, is to feed faith’s appetite for God. As we learn to delight in the rich sweetness of him, we begin to lose our taste for the poison-sugar of anything less.

It gives us the honed ferocity in our battle that we need – the daily reminders that give us the strength to endure the (often wearying) fight and to grow in our knowledge and love of God.

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that endable to you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.” – 1 Peter 1:3-4

“Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 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 6:8-9

Makes me want to go grab my Bible right now and get feasting – and fighting.
Come on, fellow warrior!

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_{Wear your crown. Carry your sword. – Maria E. Miller}

Broken & Beautiful: How to Hold Hope in the Imperfection

I felt quiet and sad. I was nine, and my only close friend was moving far away. Because I moved so much as a child, it was hard to make close friends. And by “moved” I mean different hemisphere moves, not different states or cities.

It didn’t help that I was shy, awkward, and mostly lonely. So I was almost pathetically grateful anytime another kid was friendly to me and showed kindness.

This friend had been especially sweet, and I wanted to give her a goodbye present to show her how much I cared about her – one that she could keep to remember me by.

Asking my dad to purchase a gift was out of the question: money was always tight and he would inevitably say the same thing he always did: “Make something yourself!”

I found the idea in a book of creating a little bird in a nest, using a blown egg and a little piece of egg carton. I painstakingly went through each step by myself, poking a tiny hole in the top and bottom of the egg and blowing it out of the shell, then letting it dry. I painted the eggshell a lovely aqua blue, glued on a little paper beak and two soft black paper eyes, and made a little “nest” with a painted brown cup of an egg carton, carefully gluing the egg-chick in place.

I was utterly delighted with my special gift, and very proud of my handiwork – especially since I had done it all by myself. I excitedly envisioned my friend’s joy on receiving her present.

The last day I would see my friend was on Sunday at church. That morning my dad, siblings and I all rushed out to the car to drive to church, running a few minutes late. I had grabbed the little chick and the card I had made, and placed them carefully inside the car next to my seat. Then, as I got in, I unthinkingly put my hand down to fasten the seat belt – and smashed the chick.

I was too stunned to cry, and too grief stricken to speak.

There was no point in crying. There was nothing to say.

We were already late for church, my friend was moving away the very next day, and there was no time to create anything new for her. All my hard work and loving effort was gone, and I had nothing tangible to show for it except crushed fragments of a lovely aqua blue. And it was my fault.

I have felt like that little nine year old often throughout my life. (Have you?)

I have an idea or a hope of how something I do will turn out, especially since as a believer I know that what I carry out each day is supposed to be to the glory of God.

But then, often inadvertently, I feel like I clumsily end up ruining it somehow. The gift that I had wanted to give to God of my day or my effort ends up so much less than I had hoped: a broken, shattered version of what I had envisioned. Things sometimes just end up sort of smashed and irreversibly damaged.

This is where it takes sheer stubbornness to hold on to what I know is true: God sees my heart, and He knows my intentions and yearnings. Even in the brokenness, He sees the love that I hold in my heart for Him when I offer what I have as a worship to Him. And therefore what I do has value and meaning to Him when I work out of a desire to honor Him with it.

What you do, how you faithfully keep going with your work and how you live your days – it matters.

When we deliberately choose to see our lives as something we offer up to God, even in its broken imperfection, He takes our love-gift and gauges it with a metric of grace.

As one of my favorite song lyrics say,

“So take my broken offering and make it whole/ And set my feet upon the road that leads me home/ Let me walk as one fixed upon the goal / Even though I’ve got a thousand miles to go.”

_{(Caedmon’s Call, “Thousand Miles”, Back Home, Essential Records. 2003)}

Even in those moments when all we think we hold is a crushed little egg-chick, He sees the time, care, intent, and the love that we truly offer.

“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

– Maria

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Hungry? A Hidden Surprise Feast for Your Heart

One of my favorite short animated films is “Piper”, from Pixar Films. It tells the story of a sandpiper chick urged by its mother to leave its safe warm sandy nest and begin digging for clams with the rest of the flock down by the shore.

At first, the reluctant chick assumes its mother will still feed it. When the mother instead shows the chick to search for clams in the wet sand, the chick looks askance, but hesitatingly tries – without success.

Completely oblivious to its surroundings, the chick suddenly realizes that the rest of the flock have retreated… and by itself, is knocked over by a wave of cold seawater.

Shivering, sodden, scared, the chick huddles back in its nest, when the mother gently encourages it to come out and try again. Its growling belly shows the growing need to find food.

This time, almost incapacitated by fear and dread, the chick cowers higher on the shore – when it meets a little hermit crab stolidly making its way down to the water.

Following, curious but still cautious, the chick watches as the crab spies a wave coming. Instead of running, it simply burrows down to create a safe nook to hide from the sweep of the water. Unable to escape in time from the wave, the chick quickly copies the crab’s methods, digging itself down into the wet sand just as the wave rushes over the pair, engulfing them both.

The chick hunkers underwater, eyes closed tight, trying to survive till the water recedes. Unexpectedly, the crab taps on the sandpiper’s beak. The chick opens its eyes and to the piper’s astonished gaze, the sandy floor under the water is rich with many clams, each having risen to the surface. As the wave washes back out, the clams begin to retreat below the surface again, digging down deeper, hidden once more.

This little underwater glimpse is electrifying to the sandpiper chick – and the change is extraordinary!

Gone is the little cowering, shivering, fearful chick who hides in the safety and warmth of its nest and is fed by someone else. Suddenly, the chick is energized, knowing where to find the largest clams! Running and piping with delight, it even brings an enormous clam to its mother, so large that several other sandpipers join the feast.

The little piper is still soaking wet. It is still being hit by incessant, cold waves. But now the piper is joyful, revitalized, and is no longer hungry. Instead of avoiding the waves, it realizes that they are rich opportunities for nourishment.

I can relate so well to that little sandpiper. I too often long to stay in the safety and comfort of a warm, sunny nest. I am perfectly content to avoid the cold of suffering and challenges – even while I grow hungry.

Yet when God, like a loving mama sandpiper, nudges me out of my comfort zone and I somewhat uncertainly (and often reluctantly) follow Him down to the shore, I still often expect to be completely coddled, expecting warmth, ease, and safety…

Then when frustrations, disappointments, and difficulties smack me down like chilling salt waves, I too want to give up and run far, far away, back to the shelter of the dry nest and comfortably starve.

Yet, God keeps encouraging me to start living as I was meant to be, growing in maturity and wisdom, learning how to find and consume what is most nourishing to my soul – and it’s down by the water’s edge, not up in the barren nest.

Then, in a time of apparent hardship or difficulty, completely certain that I am unable to breathe or survive in the suffocating cold flooding my senses, He also gently helps me to open my eyes in the middle of it… and reveals a feast of strength and plenty that wouldn’t otherwise be accessible to me unless I was there under the water.

In the time of hard there is nourishment. In the experiences of difficulty there is fulfillment, and in the times of loss God provides for your heart. He knows what is best for us, and He knows what we need. In His care, “even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.” (Psalm 65:11, NLT)

In our experiences that knock us over and threaten to overwhelm, if we open our eyes to Him in trust instead of fear, we will discover an entirely new strength – and even though we might still be outwardly wet, cold, bedraggled, and look a little crazy, we will have deep joy and full hearts, with plenty to share for others.

A person who is full refuses honey, but even bitter food tastes sweet to the hungry.
Proverbs 27:7, NLT

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Toenails & Why Your Life Counts: Finding Ultimate Worth

We are all called to great things. The real question is whether or not we understand what greatness means.

Because sometimes it might mean spending time cutting children’s nails.

Amy was a young woman who loved God and felt his call on her life to serve Him by traveling as a missionary to other countries. She believed strongly that she was to share the truth of the Bible, and her focus was mainly on reaching women (who were often ignored or socially restricted from interacting with male missionaries).

Her travels led her to India, where after traveling around in an ox-cart, evangelizing to women in villages with a small, devoted team, she eventually became aware of the prevalent practice of child prostitution in the temples (both young girls and boys). When a little girl escaped from a temple and fled for refuge to Amy’s home, the issue became personal.

Amy began working to free children from this terrible form of sexual slavery, and her efforts led to hundreds of children being freed, fed, clothed, housed, and educated at the orphanage and mission she founded.

No longer able to travel about evangelizing, she instead became “Amma” (Tamil for “mother”), and her newfound duties as a mother of many included that of “cutting the toe nails of a thousand children” (as her biography quotes*).

Amy Carmichael died today, January 18, in 1951, at the age of 83. She had worked in India as a missionary for 55 years without furlough. A law was passed outlawing temple prostitution for children about three years before her death.

The mission she founded still operates today.

She had traveled to India planning to work as a evangelist and focusing on teaching adults about the Gospel… and ended up cutting toenails and mothering a huge number of little children instead.

Would you say her life was wasted? Do you think she missed the mark of making an impact? Toenails seem like an insignificant task compared to preaching the gospel… but apparently not to God.

God had so clearly orchestrated the timing and work He brought her to be about that she cheerfully and joyfully submitted to His plan, His definition of great things.

Her faithfulness and deep humility give me such encouragement, especially in my current season of diapers, pots and pans, laundry, constant teaching, and yes, often cutting toenails.

What I am called to do right now as a homemaker, a wife, a mama, may not seem like high value in the eyes of the world, but I have no doubt it is exactly where I am supposed to be, and therefore I can trust that my God in His wisdom has decreed it to be worthwhile and significant.

And in that trust I can wake up each morning and know that my longing to live a life of worth and purpose is carried out by my faithfulness in serving and loving those around me to the best of my abilities, with the strength and joy He gives.

I fiercely believe this is true for you, too.

What have you been given to do in this season? Do you also fight the thoughts that sometimes come to tell you your efforts are meaningless and trivial, insignificant, worthless?

Here’s what the Bible says: Whatever you do, work at it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men, because you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
(Colossians 3:23-24)

I find joy in remembering Amy and her work as “Amma” because it gives me renewed strength in my own often seemingly mundane and unimportant work . You can take heart knowing it applies to your work, too.

God sees you, sees your faithfulness, your efforts given in love and service. And He finds that to be of great value – regardless of your opinion or perspective, or anyone else’s. Keep on in your faithful work, my friend. Keep on walking each day in what you have been given to do!

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)

Even if doing what is good is clipping the toenails of little children.

Maria

* Amy Carmichael: Beauty For Ashes, A Biography; Iain H. Murray, Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA (2015)

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How to Make Water Into Wine: 3 Steps to Joy

Look at these babies! (And I would do it again in a heartbeat.)

On this day, years ago, I once heard a sermon on the Wedding at Cana (John 2) which I have never forgotten. The pastor, a sweet-faced, white-haired gentleman, spoke sincerely and earnestly.

He was my grandfather, and I have always remembered this sermon because it was at my own wedding, nineteen years ago.

The story of the wedding at Cana is significant because it was the setting of Jesus’ first miracle. While attending a wedding feast with his disciples, Jesus becomes aware that the couple have underprepared and are about to run out of wine for their guests – an embarrassing and disgraceful predicament, for which there is no quick or cheap solution.

Jesus quietly tells the servants to fill six large stone jars nearby full of water – each able to hold twenty to thirty gallons – and then when they dip some out and take it to the MC to taste, it has become excellent wine. Only the servants know where the wine came from, and the celebration joyfully continues without interruption.

Like the couple married in Cana who ran out of wine for their wedding celebration, even the most prepared person will eventually run out of something in the relationships in their life.

We are imperfect, selfish and broken people, unable to maintain levels of altruistic, unconditional love and kindness for any significant length without needing to be refilled or renewed.

Pride, hurt, self-centeredness, distraction, laziness, or sometimes just exhaustion creep in and our first fiery, intense and purposeful strength begins to fade, slowly burn out, and trickle instead of pour.

Even if we try to refill the supply on our own, what we often find we have is just… water. Great for survival, perhaps, but not so much for celebration.

This is why we must invite Jesus into our lives, our marriages, and our relationships!

We need to seek His grace, trust His compassionate kindness, and ask for Him to step in and do something we cannot: transform our acts of duty, of faith, of slogging service into deeds done from love.

He comes and takes the water we have and transforms it into wine.

Something ordinary and draining like serving and caring for a husband, a wife, a sibling, a parent, a child, in the gritty, unfiltered, day-to-day scenarios of living life together becomes a beautiful, celebratory, joy-filling delight.

But this can happen only if:

1. We invite Him and welcome His presence. (Jesus didn’t party-crash. He was an invited guest.)

2. We admit our own lack and ask for His help in our need. (His mother noticed the problem and told Him about it, trusting that He could and would do something about it.)

3. We listen to His instructions and obey them quickly. (The servants didn’t balk at the strange request but chose to humbly obey, thereby earning the place of being witnesses of the Messiah’s first miracle.)

This is not some rose-colored, pie-in-the-sky pipe dream of wedded (or other relational) bliss worthy of any Hallmark movie.

This is the same miraculous, stunning alchemy that happened when water transformed to wine: Our daily lives filled with miscommunications, dirty diapers, burned pancakes and traffic lights can become times to celebrate and rejoice because Jesus is present.

God with us.

Immanuel.

It’s not just a word for a baby in a manger.

It’s for a loving Friend who comes into your home and touches your marriage with hope, joy, and fresh life when you are burning out and feeling empty.

It’s for a tender Father who holds your hurting bewildered heart when you don’t have the foggiest idea how to parent your child but He does.

It’s for a sweet freshness and renewed strength in carrying on with a work you’re bone-weary of walking in.

He can come. He wants to come! He knows our need. He can take our offered colorless normal and transform it into something intoxicating and delightful, rich and vibrant, worthy of a party.

Because if we are His followers, the life we live now should carry notes of the music in the Wedding Feast to come. We should be practicing the steps to dance now. We should be looking ahead with joyful anticipation of the celebration and the smiles of hope should be shining on our faces today.

He gives that joy – He IS that Joy. His Joy is our strength, and our water becomes wine in His presence.

Nineteen years ago I married my best friend. We invited Jesus to our wedding, and into our marriage. Despite our own brokenness and frequent failings, in His gracious kindness He meets us daily in our lack, and we celebrate our love because of His.

{To my faithful, courageous husband – I love you. Thank you for marrying me.}

Cheers!