40ish Days of Lent: Day 13ish

There have still been people joining us in this Lent Observance and so a quick shout out to you. Glad to have you with us…

My apologies for the break in Lent Observance transmissions, but we were away this weekend at Yosemite. Tough break huh? Anyways, will be on track again from today and have revised the series name to 40ish Days of Lent – let’s see just how far we get.

DAY 13

So on Day 4 of this observance we took a look at something beautiful outside of our window that we may not have noticed before. Having just done the Yosemite park visit, I decided that we had to do something related.

Task: Find a piece of nature to take joy in.

Now, maybe all of us don’t have the opportunity to go and actually sit in it, but if you do then i want to encourage you to do that – walk to a nearby park, sit in you garden, go spend an hour at the beach, visit the botanical gardens in your city. Whatever it is, if you can do it live, then go do it live.

But if you are not able to physically get into nature, try and find a picture of you in nature or a photograph you took of some natural phenomenon – some time you were in it at least, and spend some time meditating on that.

Not everyone draws closer to God in nature, but i know a lot of people who do. If you are one of these people, this exercise and observance might come easily for you. But if you are not, then i encourage you to do it anyways as it will push you outside of your comfort zones which is not the worst of things.

Take some time to look at creation and be reminded of the Creator. That is today’s observance.

no words, just awe

approaching the rock tunne;

water falling

power of water over stone

Then share it with someone – take a photo and stick it on your facebook wall or add it to your instagram account or come and add a link in the comments section below. Write a poem or song inspired by your time in nature and send it to someone you know and love to encourage them and just show them some love. Find at least one person to specifically share today’s encounter with.

[For day 14ish of Lent, click here]

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 53

this is a really short psalm and i don’t have a lot to say about it… seems like another bad day in the office for David, starting with:

‘The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.’ [verse 1]

i mean, come on now David, that seems a little overly dramatic… and are you including yourself in that or is this another typical everyone-else-sucks-but-I’m-good that we’ve seen so much of?

but the first line is at least true. i’ve said this before and i will probably say it again – i believe that it takes a lot more faith to not believe in God, than to believe in God.

i get this from looking at my little finger. just stop and look at yours for a second. now bend it. i mean that’s a little finger and it freakingly amazingly brilliantly designed. creation speaks of a creator. to think an explosion happened and somehow that resulted. now add in your whole body. now look at it under a microscope and start thinking about atoms and DNA and smaller and more intricate and you have to go WOW, something is happening. something has happened here. the fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’

you can come up with the conclusion that it’s not the same God i believe in, but there has to be something. and that’s a start.

and he continues with this:

‘God looks down from heaven on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good, not even one.’ [verse 2,3]

this reminds me of the story of Elijah, who after seeing God pour fire from heaven on his water-drenched sacrifice in 1 Kings 18 and the death of hundreds of Baal worshipers, ends up fleeing from one woman and alone and depressed in a cave:

‘He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”’ [1 Kings 19, 14-18]

woe is me, it’s just me, i’m the only one who gets this… No, you’re not David. No, you’re not Elijah. No, you’re not [insert your name here]. I have this. It is My kingdom and I care about it more than you do. That person you are so concerned about, I love them more than you do.

Trust Me. Give me your hand, get up off your face and let’s do this thing…

[To return to the Intro page and be connected to any of the other Psalms i have walked through before now, click here]

“Weekly Photo Challenge: (Illumination)”

one of my favourite pics ever!

some friends of mine ran a worship camp in the middle of a farm in Namibia and i was part of helping put the thing together – one of the best aspects was being out of cellphone contact and apart from some electricity for instruments it was amazing to be almost completely ‘unplugged’ for the four days of camping [knowing that hot water could be boiled on the fire for coffee helped]

the last nite of every ‘Namrock’ – as it was called – we would shine the projector with the song words at the mountain-side across the river where we were camping and sing off of the mountain. the idea of facing creation while singing to the Creator [as opposed to singing to God while facing a team of people leading worship] was just so incredibly powerful and a stunning representation to me of the word ‘Illumination.’

the campfire would illuminate the people in the camp, while the words would bring illumination to the songs reflecting the prayers and praise of our hearts… and all of this while God had already created the greatest light show on earth in the stars and planets and moon and shooting stars above…

one of those moments where you just wish the world could be stopped so you could fully appreciate it. altho every year it seemed like that is exactly what happened.

[For the previous Photo Challenge on the theme of ‘Resolved’ click here]