Hid in the Light of Christ

I was reading and praying last night and I think I made an interesting little connection between light and being "hid with Christ in God."

I prayed that the light of God, Christ, would come upon you and asked that the darkness be driven away. Then I remembered how God shielded Moses and the Hebrews from the darkness during the 9th plague by shining the light on them. It then occurred to me that the light is God's way of hiding us.

We usually think of darkness or shadow when we think of hiding - as kids we hid in the closet or under the bed, somewhere dark where no one could see us. We hear people talk about evil hiding in the shadows and that we need to shine the light on the darkness to expose wicked deeds. But what if God hides us in the light?

I've heard darkness defined as the absence of light - darkness is nothing itself, but rather it's the absence of light. If God were to shield us - to hide us - from darkness, where would the best place be? In the shadows? Under a rock? No! It'd be in the light - in the radiance of His glorious love where "there is no darkness" and where "there is no night."

I'll pray that God hide you in His light, in His love, in His grace. I'll pray that the light of Christ be not hid from you. I'll pray that you feel that light on you - filling your thoughts and your body. I'll pray that His light pass not from you. I'll pray that His light radiate throughout your day and throughout your life. I'll pray that you see His light and that you will know no absence of light - know no darkness. I'll pray that your faith in Christ expand and grow deeper.

And I'll pray that Paul's words be fulfilled in your life - "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." You do live as a child of the light - and "for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth."

Dear God - the Father of us all.

Fill our hearts and lives with your love. Purify our hearts so that we may know You better. Purify our lives so that we see only You. Let us hear your angels each moment of each day. Let us see the unabated light and love that you send to us each moment. Let us know of your omnipotence and your presence. Let no darkness come between You and us, your image. And if darkness seems to encompass round about us, let us turn our gaze to heaven - to the light - as Daniel did when surrounded by evil in the pit. Establish us in your grace, in your love - and in the most holy faith. Plant our feet on your rock - the "new doctrine" that your Son taught, the "substance of things hoped for."

“Sorry, I don’t love you enough…”

“Sorry, I don’t love you enough…”

by Laura King

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To ask you to do your chores.
Who needs self-respect from working hard,
When you can have a sense of entitlement instead?

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To tell you that you can’t have everything that you want.
I’ll make myself feel less guilty by giving in,
And set you up for financial difficulties later on.

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To teach you not to be selfish.
When your relationships fail,
You’ll find out that it’s not all about you.

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To give you the love and affection that you crave.
Instead you can go from relationship to relationship
Without ever finding what you’re looking for.

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To insist that you treat me with respect.
When you can’t figure out why you keep losing jobs,
You’ll learn the importance of respecting those in authority.

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To punish you for your bad behavior.
I’ll let the police give you the consequences
That I was too lazy to dispense.

Sorry, I don’t love you enough
To show you what a good relationship with God is like.
A strong sense of morality is overrated.
Who wants to feel guilty about their lives anyway

You may love me now, but
You won’t even like me later.
Instead of what is best for you,
I’ll do what is easier for me at the time.
I won’t think about the fact that I’m making
A miserable life for both of us in the end.

All because… I don’t love you enough.

Copyright 2009 Laura King. Used with permission.

God runs my life smoothly.

My household does not require me to run smoothly. If God is in charge of me and my family, then God makes my household run smoothly. It doesn't require me to make it work. In the same way, the world runs smoothly and is ordered because God runs smoothly and is ordered. Whether it's their housing, diet, or affection, it is all in place and operates according to God's principle, love.

A LIttle Prayer for Today

And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ [right up to the time of His return], developing [that good work] and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you. - Phil 1:6

God is working in/through you to bring your thought and consciousness closer to Him. The work that He is doing through you is bringing you closer to Him. The changes that He is working, the love that He is causing, the goodness that He fills you up with, the light that He shines on you, is all leading you closer to Him. He causes that perfect work to be done in you - He is causes you to come closer to Him. Your life changes with that change of heart that He is causing. This change shows you that He is the only cause in your life.

God is Still God

I was reading the fourth chapter of Amos this morning and came across some woe prophecies - "The Lord will bring disasters upon you..." The entire chapter was dedicated to outlining what stupid things the Israelites could do - making sacrifices to pagan gods, worshiping the earth/matter, etc. Then at the end it says, "The Lord is the one who shaped the mountains, stirs up the winds, and reveals His thoughts to mankind."

Reading the entire chapter, I came away with the impression that Amos was telling the Israelites that could do whatever stupid thing they wanted, but God was still God - He still controls all things and is still revealing His thoughts to each of us.

Then I took it a step further - to mat'l sense it may appear that we can, and may have already, really messed things up. But to spiritual sense, which tells us what reality it, God is in complete control and we are never outside His care and His heaven. Never!

So, let's ignore mat'l sense - the swirling winds, the cloudy days, the burdensome thoughts - and pay attention to spiritual sense - get a sense of reality as it really is. Matter can have it's false gods and false fears, but we'll stick with reality. Nothing can make us fear!

Learning Spirit

In order to learn Spirit, like Job did, we must first unlearn what our material senses are telling us. They cannot communicate the Truth of Spirit, so they cannot be trusted. Spirit is the only sense we need - the only knowledge we need for true living.

Shut the door and open thought

Reprinted from the July 2010 issue of The Christian Science Journal.

In the Bible, the smallest details are often the most important and can sometimes lead to life-changing discoveries. This is particularly true in the Old Testament, where entire stories can sometimes be told in just a few verses and details are often scarce.

While studying the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson a few months ago, I stumbled upon a detail from a story about Elisha. The story is told in just seven verses and has very few details, but one of the specific things that it mentions is a door.

The story of Elisha and the vessels of oil is probably familiar to most people who love the Bible. When a poor widow woman finds herself deep in debt, the creditor threatens to take her two sons and force them to work off the debt. The woman seeks help from Elisha, who tells her to gather vessels from her neighbors, go into her house, shut the door, and pour oil from her small pot into the vessels she gathered. Miraculously, the vessels fill with oil. The woman sells the oil and gains enough money to pay off the debt and live on the remaining money.
Doorkeepers were responsible for guarding and restricting access to secure areas.

The instruction to “shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons” got my attention. Since the narrative gave so few details, I began to wonder if only details that were important to the story’s spiritual meaning were included. As I looked more deeply, I discovered that the Hebrew words deleth and pethach, which both translate to mean “door” or “gate,” appear throughout the Old Testament narratives. These terms have both literal and symbolic significance in the Bible. A door usually refers to either the flap at the entrance of a tent, or an object, often made from wood, which would swing open in a doorway. Jews traditionally placed a small box or container with the words of God inside on the door of their homes. The gate at the entrance of a city or village, was often where a judge or some civil authority settled disputes between citizens. It was also a place where business was transacted and where official proclamations were announced. Being a doorkeeper or gatekeeper was an important and dignified position. Doorkeepers were responsible for guarding and restricting access to secure areas. The Levites were appointed doorkeepers for the tabernacle, which housed the ark of the covenant. Interestingly, this was one of the few positions that was open to women.

There are many references to doors in the Old Testament. For example, Lot was sitting at the city doors or gates when two angels visited the city of Sodom; he took the two men to his house and kept them behind a closed door when the inhabitants of Sodom attempted to take them. Later in the Bible, when Moses and the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit often appeared as a cloud at the door of the tabernacle where the ark of the covenant was kept. Doors are mentioned throughout Elisha’s life. When raising a little boy from the dead, Elisha goes into the room where the boy has been laid and closes the door. Elisha even has one of his servants secretly anoint a new king of Israel, Jehu, behind a closed door.

There are also references to doors and gates in the New Testament, especially in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote about the death of the daughter of a leader of a synagogue, a man named Jairus. When Jesus arrives at the man’s home, he tells the people not to be sad because the girl is asleep, not dead. Matthew says, “But the crowd laughed at him.” Then Jesus tells everyone to leave the house; he puts them all outside of the house and closes the door. It is then that Jesus raises the girl.

In what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his students on how to pray. He says, “When you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private.” The King James Version of the Bible says, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.” In Jesus’ time, a “closet” was a small storeroom inside the house used for food and other supplies.

But a deeper look at the significance of doors and gates in the Bible suggests rich spiritual and symbolic meanings. In one sense, the door and the doorway represent access to something desired. The Book of Revelation describes the gateway to heaven as an open door that no one can shut. In this sense, the door is symbolic of a welcome, or of being welcomed somewhere.

On the other hand, the door and the doorway can represent denying access to someone or something. During the plagues leading to the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, Moses instructed the Hebrews to place the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their homes so that the final plague would pass over their homes. When the Sodomites attempted to get to the two young men staying with Lot, he closed the door to keep them out. When Elisha didn’t want a messenger from the king of Israel to reach him, he told the elders to shut the door and keep the messenger from entering.

The door and the doorway in the largest sense represent a passage or transition from one place or thing to another. This can mean entering or exiting a home or building, but it can also refer to the transition from one way of thinking and living to another way. A door can also symbolize secrecy, safety, protection, and privacy. These definitions may show why the detail of a door is so often included in Biblical narratives.

But why did Lot, Elisha, and Jesus find it important to close the door? Based on the last two definitions of door—a transition from one state to another, and safety and protection—readers can assume they were keeping something out. For example, when Elisha instructed the widow to close the door, he also may have been telling her to shut out her fears and doubts, as well as the fears and doubts of others. Perhaps he was inviting her to transform the way she thought about wealth.

Elisha knew that most people thought that the source and substance of this woman’s wealth was limited, much like people today think the source and substance of their wealth is limited to their income, inheritance, or even by their education. But not Elisha. He apparently understood that true substance—the substance of reality, of God—is Spirit. Elisha appears to have recognized the natural harmony of God’s creation, and that in this harmony there’s no room for discord or a lack of agreement. So, when he told the woman to close the door, I feel he was telling her to close or block her consciousness to anything that would prevent harmony from being seen. And when she did, her debt was gone in an instant.

Jesus was doing something very similar when he put all of the people out of Jairus’s house, and when he instructed followers to go somewhere alone when praying. When Jesus arrived at Jairus’s house, the people around him clearly believed the girl was dead and that she couldn’t be revived. By putting the people out of the house and closing the door, Jesus was shutting out their doubts and fears just as Elisha had done with the widow.

These practical examples illustrate how to live the Bible’s teachings each day—how to block out worries and allow the Christ to change us—to transform the way we think and change our lives for the better.

Makin' Light of Darkness

Elisha and the Pots of Oil

Elisha and the Poisoned Stew

Man in Tombs

Daniel and the Lions' Den

An Asa in the Hand is Worth Two Under Foot

Spiritual Vision

The Inheritance

Joseph's Coat of Many Colors

O’ God, change me so that I can love them better!

I pray for my kids everyday. I pray for other people’s kids everyday. I pray that they feel, hear, and know God’s love. I pray that they see God and follow His path. I pray that they know themselves the way God knows them.

But the most important prayer that I pray is quite simple – “O’ God, change me so that I can love them better.” Change me! Not them, me.

Train Up That Child!
So often parents get caught up in trying to make children behave a certain way or do a certain thing. And this is extremely important and valuable – after all, the Bible says “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Or as the New Living Translation says it, “Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”

But notice how the verse says “in the way he should go” or “onto the right path.” Parents aren’t training children in “where” to go but in “how” to go. It’s a path to walk down – a way of living, a way of being. In order to be on the right path, we should train our children to follow God’s lead – not our’s. In fact, the change we must be willing to make is to convert from trying hard to be a good parent to trusting God to be the best Parent to all of His children, listening and being willing to follow His guidance.

Don’t make them angry!
A man I know was having a little trouble relating to his young son. When his son was born, he read a lot of parenting books that were recommended by people he trusted – either friends or national figures whose opinions he respected. This was helpful, but by the time his son was seven or eight, it was clear that they had different interests, different tastes, and different ways of doing things.

It wasn’t a bad situation. In fact, the differences were quite minor considering what some families go through, but it was frustrating nonetheless. My friend didn’t want to live his life in constant frustration, but more importantly he didn’t want his son to know his dad as a frustrated person or as a source of frustration.

He came across an important verse in the New Testament. It reads “Fathers, don't make your children angry. Instead, train them and teach them the ways of the Lord as you raise them” (Ephesians 6:4, The New International Reader's Version [NIrV], also called the Adventure Bible for Young Reader’s).

Then he came across a similar verse in Colossians 3:21. “Fathers, don't make your children bitter. If you do, they will lose hope” (NIrV).

Finally, he discovered another verse that described the way a father should treat his children. I Thessalonians 2:11-12 read, “You know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. We gave you hope and strength. We comforted you. We really wanted you to live in a way that is worthy of God. He chooses you to enter his glorious kingdom” (NIrV).

Change me!
This led him to believe that he needed to love his son better – but to do this required being more humble. He needed to live the way he wanted his son to live. So, in order to fix things, he needed to change.

This led him to the following very simple prayer – “O’ God, change me so that I can love better.” He didn’t ask for God to change his son – God made the boy in His image, in His likeness. Instead he asked God to change him so that he could better love what God created – so that he could see the beauty, goodness, and holiness God created.

Try saying this prayer each morning for a week, and see how it changes your life.

It changed mine – I’m that father. Within just a couple of days, I started loving my son better. The frustration left and the loving took over. And I found that we actually had a lot of things in common. I’m sure those things were there all along, but I couldn’t see them.