PSALM 87 - That Darned Toaster!

Lord, You are the God Who saves me. I cry out to you day and night. Receive my prayer, and listen to my cry. My life is full of troubles, and I am nearly dead. They think I am on the way to my grave. I am like a man with no strength. I have been left as dead, like a body lying in a grave whom You don't remember any more, cut off from Your care.  (Verses 1-5)

"Be strong and brave. Don't be afraid of them and don't be frightened, because the Lord your God will go with you. He will not leave you or forget about you." Deuteronomy 31/Hebrews 13

 But He said to me, "My grace is enough for you. When you are weak, My power is made perfect in you." So I am very happy to brag about my weaknesses. Then Christ's power can live in me. For this reason I am happy when I have weaknesses, insults, hard times, sufferings and all kinds of troubles for Christ. Because when I am weak, than I am truly strong. 
(2 Corinthians 12)

I stumbled to the kitchen early one morning and somehow, with my bleary eyes, found the coffee pot. I filled it with water and poured in the grounds, waiting for even the aroma of it brewing to awaken me from the lingering anesthesia of sleep. Somehow I found my vitamins and chocolate milk (a daily indulgence I will avow always makes taking all those pills possible) and swallowed the things without their becoming stuck in my throat. I cut a piece of bread and threw it in the toaster, pushed the button down, and poured myself a half cup of coffee (couldn't wait for the coffee maker to brew an entire mug's worth). I could already taste that piece of toast. Slathered in both real butter and apple butter. I love it when they melt together on the bread. Nothing was happening, though, with that darn toast. I couldn't smell it crisping in the little red lights of the chrome machine that should make my breakfast appear any moment now. I peeked in. No lights. Nothing. My bread sat there waiting on a toaster that was...okay, it was unplugged. I told you I was sleepy. It's amazing how well the toaster worked when I gave it a little electricity.

Like me. Unplugged, I pretty much just sit there. No ideas. No real ability to make things happen. But the fact that I'm powerless without Christ makes anything possible with Him. I think about the discussions Bill and I had about how we were going to put three kids through college without bankrupting our future and theirs. We prayed and prayed about it, saved what we could (we live in California), and trusted Him. I took a job as a director of a learning center. Within months, it was taken over by Sylvan Learning Centers. Then the corporation originally owning it wanted to sell it to us. We, who had to have a job in order to survive. However, when they accepted the very low price I offered, we understood once again that unless we plugged into Him, we didn't have enough money even for that. Miraculously, truly miraculously, God provided the money. The business grew. Big enough to pay for college and then some. When our son finished his last semester, it became clear God wanted us to sell the business. Turns out it was at just the right time. Although I thought it premature in the moment.

I have also experienced the power failure when I get far enough away from the outlet that I have stretched the cord too far. I was upset with God. Didn't understand too many whys. In my life and in the lives of those I loved. Satan uses the idea that God isn't good, as he did with Eve in the garden, to cause us to slowly remove our lives from their very Source. Now don't get me wrong. God didn't move. I did. It's at this point I relate to the psalmist this morning. A limp fish, lying on my bed, crying and moaning about all that is wrong. It's not that his troubles, and mine, weren't real. Life is chock full of stuff to get over, around or through. For the whiner or for the brave. And it's very brave to face, unafraid and full of faith, the train wrecks that may come our way. It's counter intuitive to unplug at just the time we need power. Just like it seems to make no sense to be undaunted in the face of the daunting. That same power Who raised Christ from the dead dwells in me!!! (Romans 8) So He can also raise me from my bed of pain and doubt, strengthen my wobbly legs, teach my wandering mind and quell my deepest fears. If He can't, I'm as effective as my toaster without electricity. But I must engage. Make myself available again in faith, not trusting in the plan, but in the Planner. Not drawing close because I understand how it will all work out, but allowing Him to make a way where this is no way! That's how I become strong when I am weak. Here I am, Lord, plug me in! Then I get to observe His great power as it surges through a useless toaster. To see all that He can do when I think I'm almost dead, full of troubles and on my way to the grave.

As Moses said to Joshua and the children of Israel before he died, "Be strong and brave because the Lord is with you and won't forget about you." Run, walk or crawl back to the Source today. It might take a while to get there, depending upon how far away you've wandered. But the outlet is alive. The power is available. And your God is waiting for you to let go of your weakness so He can show you how strong He is.

PSALM 87 - The Gift of Home

They will dance and sing, "All good things come from Jerusalem (Zion)!" (Verse 7)

Every good action and perfect gift is from God. These good gifts come down from the Creator of the sun, moon and stars, Who does not change like their shifting shadows. God decided to give us life through the word of truth so we might be the most important of all the things He made.   James 1:17

I was talking with my daughter, Vanessa, last night about how challenging this world is for the collective "us." We know many people in distress right now, people we love. And there seems to be no explanation nor any way we can actually help make their pain easier. It's called life. There are times of great rejoicing and then there are the times of struggle. But what I have learned from having lived sixty-four years now is this. Struggle can also be a gift. And a good one. Because it refines and maybe even defines us.

The thought is choking me up right now because it was in my most intense struggle with God that I fell most deeply in love with Him. I learned we can fight with Him with gut-wrenching tears and clenched fists. He would rather I scream my pain at Him while I'm in my car driving aimlessly around because it's the only place no one but He will hear me than have me run away from the issues. My Father can take it. He listened to Job and the poor man's friends until He'd had enough. But answered! Talked Job through the pain. And, evidently, finally let His child know what was up since we have the full story of Satan's challenges over Job in heaven. There are times when we can't know why. Maybe never will. But if God has us on our faces, pouring out our hearts to Him, we are in a very safe place. And a place of blessing. We are the most important of God's created beings. Nothing can separate us from His love or His presence. Not even our darkest hours.

It is why Zion is so desirable. Vanessa asked me last night if we are just here to live our lives waiting for heaven. That's a good question. Christ is our foretaste of home. Here is what Paul said in Romans 8: These sufferings that we have now are nothing compared to the great glory that will be shown us. Everything God made is waiting with excitement for God to show His children's glory completely...We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth. Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God's promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us His own children, which means our bodies will be made free. We were saved, and we have this hope. It's not that God expects us to live only in expectation of heaven, but what a gift to know this existence isn't all there is. What a miracle to realize that even our crooked paths on this daunting earth lead to Zion, where we were born. And if born there, we belong there. Not here.

That is the ultimate good and perfect gift, our salvation. Come to us from above. Costly and thoughtful--transportation home when the time comes. When the tent is left behind and we reach the gates of Zion it will matter what we did with the dusty roads on Earth. It will matter that we allowed our God to be Lord of the whiplash as well as the smooth, straight roads that sometimes lift us up. We are in the womb of life right now, awaiting birth into Zion forever. Born out of flesh, flying into spirit, renamed and fresh. I don't think we live our lives only for our entrance through the gates our Lord loves so much, but I believe that is why they are so dear to Him. We come through them one day. Our Father must feel as I do when the kids come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and we are all together again. Everyone eating, joking around, hugging and kissing. Home. Yeah. I think we should be living to go home. It makes perfect sense.
 

PSALM 87 - I'm Not From Around Here, Maám

The Lord records as He registers the peoples, "This one was born there." (Verse 6)

At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of Your people. And there shall be a time of trouble such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time Your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.  Daniel 12

Then I saw a great white throne and Him Who was seated on it. From His presence fled earth and sky, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Than another book was opened, which is the book of life. And he dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
Revelation 20

And of the New Jerusalem, Zion, it is written: Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Revelation 21
(Italics mine)

When I was a student at the University of Texas at Austin, I briefly dated a young man who was from New Jersey. He used to crack me up because of the way he talked. This from a girl from Texas who drawled y'all and said she was tawred (translation - tired). It seems people from Jersey have trouble with er and oi.  My friend always wanted to go to the terlet (toilet) and would point toward toitles (turtles) at the zoo. He went for an erl change and talked about his mom's goidle (girdle). See how crazy he was to listen to?

Another boyfriend was from New York where life is lived in the fast lane. We went on a date to a local restaurant in Austin and had the usual greasy fare: chicken fried steak, gravy, mashed potatoes and green beans, followed of course with some kind of pie with homemade crust to cut the grease. Lol. Because the diner wasn't fancy, he paid up front when we left. My date dutifully handed the aproned waitress his money, took the change and began escorting me out when we heard the slow drawl of the waitress as she said, "Y'all come back now!" My date immediately turned and started walking back to the register. "Where are you going?" I asked. "She told us to come back," he replied, worried. I laughed so hard. Couldn't help it. I'd heard that so many times growing up that I didn't even hear it any more. "Oh, my gosh," I said. "She's just bein' nice."

Ways to know "You're not from around here, are you?" Some things just stick out all over us when we get out of our familiar environments. Tall blonds in China, for instance. Bill and I were celebrities when we visited there in 1983. Just because we were so different from the cultural norm. So, how would someone know we are from Zion?  One who was born there? What does it mean that God registers His people? Does He keep a list of those who are going to live in Zion one day?

Seems the answer to the last question is absolutely yes. It is in the Lamb's book of life. Because it is the Lamb Who purchased our ability to be registered there. The lack of our name on a line in the text means Zion is not our eternal home. We didn't measure up, so we live forever out of the presence of God. Hmm. Does that seem unfair? How about these words of Jesus: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him is condemned already, because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." John 3
Wow! That sounds too easy, doesn't it. It doesn't sound like we are judged by a mean old God Who can't wait for us to do a wrong thing so He can waterboard and beat us. If we want our names written forever in the book of life, we believe in Jesus as the Only Son of God. We trust in Him for the salvation  we can never gain through our own puny self-righteousness. God wants this for the whole world! We only fall short by resisting the provision God gave us freely and free. No working for it. Only accepting the gift of it.

So, what's the problem? Sin, really. We want to rule our own lives without the parameters God might put on us because we embrace Jesus. The heart that wants to know Him is the heart God registers in His book. Born not of the womb of woman, but of the new birth given by the Holy Spirit when a sinner sees her need of a life not bound by flesh. And that makes us talk differently. Gives us priorities different from the culture we live in, usually. As we grow up in Christ, we won't be sounding like many of those around us because we are new...different. Our minds have been changed by the mind of Christ. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him/her, and he/she is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned...for who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2 

I'm feeling more and more like a stranger here. My heart and mind out of sync with the society. But that shouldn't surprise me, because I'm not from around here. I've been registered in Zion. That doesn't make me brag. Quite the opposite. I know I'm saved...from my own folly and self-righteousness. When the Lamb looks at me one day, He will see my sin covered with His own dear blood. And when the book of life is opened and the Lamb of God reads the names, it will be only because of Jesus that I will be able to say, "Here!"

"Behold (Look!)  I have engraved you on the palms of My hands." God, Isaiah 49

PSALM 87 - Born To Be Free

Among those who know Me I mention Rahab and Babylon; behold Philisitia and Tyre, with Cush--"This one was born there," they say. And of Zion it shall be said, "This one and that one were born in her"; for the Most High Himself will establish her. The Lord records as He registers the peoples, "This one was born there."  (Verses 4-6)

Her inn was built into the city wall of Jericho. A prostitute, she was open for business when two men approached her door for lodging. They were Israelites. It made Rahab's heart beat faster. Their God was mighty. News of Israel's many victories and their escape from Egypt was miraculous--seas dried up and plagues called forth. All her adult life those stories made her increasingly curious about a God who would love a people so much He would accompany them out of bondage. She served the men a meal of lamb and bread, wondering if this was finally the time Israel would take over Jericho.

Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door. "Go," she told the Jewish men. "Go up to the roof and hide yourselves in the stalks of flax!" She motioned with her hands in the direction the men should go as she smoothed her tunic and brushed food from her face.

"Where are they?" the soldiers of the king demanded. "We heard the Jewish men came in here earlier this afternoon! Bring them out. They came to search our land."

"True,"said Rahab. "They came here, but when the gate was about to be closed for dark, they left."

"Where were they going?" The larger of the two soldiers got right into her face. "What did they tell you?"

"I don't know where they went." Rahab's breathing was coming too quickly. She could only hope they didn't notice. "You need to hurry if you want to catch them. You could probably overtake them."

When they hurriedly left, Rahab closed her door and leaned against it while her heartbeat slowed. The men scurried out of the gates toward the Jordan River right before they closed for the day. The Jewish men were safe for now.

In the quiet of the night, Rahab climbed to the rooftop of the lodging and found the Israelite spies. After removing the stalks of flack and helping the men brush the residue from their garments, Rahab said, "I know the Lord has given you this land. Your God rescued you from Egypt and gave your armies victory over the Amorite kings. When we all heard about it, our hearts melted. Everyone in Jericho is afraid of you because of your God. I know the Lord your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath."

The two men were stunned at her declaration of faith. First of all, because she was an unclean woman. A Gentile whore. That revelation of the Most High would come to her seemed unlikely, at best.

"Here," continued the harlot. "Take the end of this rope and I will let you down the wall. Hide in the woods for three days until your pursuers have stopped looking for you. But you must promise me that on the day you take Jericho, you will spare my family."

"Tie a scarlet rope from this same window so we see it hanging on the wall, and we will spare your family. All your relatives must be in the house with you or their blood is not on our hands." The oath was made, and the men were set free.

And Rahab? She and her family were spared because of her faith in the God of Israel. She believed with a faith that is a gift. If from the womb God knows our paths (Psalm 139), then the prostitute was in God's sights all her life. It was He Who revealed Himself to her, for no one can come to God unless He draws that person to Him (John 6). But how could that be? She made her living as a prostitute? She wasn't a Jew. Jericho didn't live by the Ten Commandments. She'd only heard of a God who chose a specific nation to love and care for. What made her think His mercy could extend to her? For how long had she mulled over in her mind what she would do when the Jews came for Jericho? What gave her even the smallest hope that God would save someone like her? Yet, He did see her. Pick her out of the entire city as the one He would save. She lived alongside the Jewish women in God's Promised Land. She was a direct ancestor of Jesus. Our Lord came from her family.

There will probably be people in heaven we don't expect. Zion will be filled with people God saw and we missed. Prostitutes who finally found love in Him. Murderers and cheats in whose lives Jesus intervened. Europeans, Asian, Arabs and neighbors who God chose to love when maybe we couldn't. Born onto Earth from the loins of His grace to one day be called "the children of God." So that one day, when it's all said and done, the records will show our Father pointing to even the least of us and saying, "That one? Yes, that one was born here in Zion before the foundations of the earth."




 

PSALM 87 - Why Are We Homesick Here?

On the holy mount stands the city He founded. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God.  (Verses 1-3)

Home. It's why God loves it so. Those gates open wide to receive His children and He lives with them forever in Zion, the New Jerusalem. Biblically, Zion is referenced as both a heavenly city and the earthly Jerusalem. This all speaks a deeper thought to me this morning. That Earth is a shadow of the real. A peek at eternity. Here's why I say this.

The Bible begins as God speaks creation into being, first the heavens then the earth. It's into a garden God places first animals then man and woman. Through the garden runs a beautiful river. The greenery is lush. A remarkable tree stands in its midst--the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God walks with His creation, living with it in intimacy and joy. Until...well, we all know the sorrow of Adam and Eve. This Eden seems a foretaste of Zion, for the Bible ends with a description of heaven, Zion, the New Jerusalem. "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God." God once again living daily with His children. Where? Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month. (Revelation) A garden.

It boggles my mind that God created earth to be similar enough to heaven that it becomes a picture of the divine for us. He brought home to planet Earth. A taste of heaven to man. Maybe so that when we see the pounding rivers, the majestic mountains, the roaring seas, hanging fruit and luscious plant life, we get a little homesick. Some of us don't know the feeling to be that. But it seems that built into us is a desire for living water and communion with God. What if we were to be believed by every person on the earth that God, THE GOD, wants relationship with them. That when we see sunsets and rainbows, get that deep inexplicable yearning that the beauty of the earth stirs in us, it means the Creator is hinting at so much more to be enjoyed forever. What if one day we participated in beauty in such a way that we no longer describe it but are a part of it? If fruit on the earth is sweet and delicious, how much more the real fruit of heaven. For the earthly is only a shadow of the real Zion.
Would anyone then refuse God?

And why does God love Zion so? It's home. The Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, lives in splendor undefined by anything here on Earth. God Almighty, glowing from His own brilliance like diamonds and jasper, reigns from a throne set in the midst of a rainbow of emerald hues too intense for the human eye to view. In constant harmony, heavenly beings praise Him day and night as thunder crashes and lightning flashes in an explosion of power God cannot keep leashed. Jesus is there. The Lamb. He will rise soon to Mount Zion and command the end times. (Revelation 14) From Zion the politics of the nations are decreed. It is the center of everything. The real. Insinuating itself upon the shadow.

But one day we will know as we are known. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13. We will go home. And realize we've been living in a crummy apartment when a palace awaits. All our sensory experiences will have been drab in comparison to the richness of heavenly fare. We in Him and He in us and all in the Father, ravished and completed by the consummation of a love we all desire but can't quite reach on Earth. We will walk through the door, Jesus, the gate of heaven, and participate eternally in "the glorious things" spoken about the city of God.
 

PSALM 86 - An Oncoming Train And God

Lord, teach me what You want me to do, and I will live by Your truth. Teach me to respect You completely. Lord, my God, I will praise You with all my heart, and I will honor Your name forever. You have great love for me. You have saved me from death.  (Verses 11-13)

On August 3, 1974, I held a little eight pound miracle in my arms. Heather. Rosy cheeked and ruby lipped, she didn't even cry. Simply looked around the operating room as if she'd been wondering for a while what the world outside the womb must be like. So this is it, huh? And so it began. The nursing and rocking, the cooing and pacing. Orienting our baby to life on Earth. Far from the place of perceived destiny when she was envisioned by her heavenly Father. What to do with her now? How to teach her what she needs to know to live well. A huge responsibility.

Fortunately I'd been a teacher. Middle school and high school. That gave me perspective. Mainly, I knew what I didn't want my children to be like. Behaviors I understood would damage them, cause them pain too early. Where to start? Where to start? "Don't touch!" Of course, she touched. Found out for herself what hot means. "Be still." Wriggling and toppling in response. "Put your books away." Heather still sat reading despite the imperative. I had to discipline her else she wouldn't understand right from wrong. I've had three children. Trust me, kids need to be taught the right thing. The students I've taught and interfaced with who don't know the kind and correct way to act toward others are miserable and very mistake prone. Always looking for a boundary. Because boundaries are safe. They mean someone cares that we don't cross a line, sees when we do, and rescues us from ourselves.

There was a train behind our home.  It whistled and rumbled past several times a day. I often thought about a story I'd heard of a mother and her child who were walking near the tracks of a similar train one day when the toddler let loose of her mother's hand and ran toward the oncoming train. "Lie down!" screamed the mother, who wasn't fast enough to get to her child. "Lie down on the tracks!"
The child immediately complied. Safe in the cradle between the rails, she was saved from death because she obeyed. I thought of this story many times a day during the first years of being a mommy. It's important my kids understood first time obedience. For the little girl on the tracks, there would be no counting to three. No, "Young lady, you better do what I said!" Now was the only time the mother had. Maybe in Target it's not so important, but in bigger things, it just might be a matter of life and death. I have stopped the car on more occasions than my children want to remember to carry out the punishment I promised when I said, "If you don't obey right now, I will stop this car!"

So, what on earth does this have to do with Psalm 86? Everything. My rebirth in Christ has made me a child of God. Freshly minted and in dire need of instruction concerning how to live as a Christian. I can't count on watching everyone else. I need to learn God from God. He speaks. That's why we have a Bible. So I must learn what He wants as a new baby learns from her mother. At first, my Father does pretty much everything for me. Caresses and encourages me. Helps me walk. Picks me up when I trip along toward maturity in Him. But as I grow older in Christ, I am expected to know more and act like it. To respect my Father's authority. To comply with His heart instead of thumbing my nose at Him and doing what feels good or right to me. To trust He has my best interest and His glory in mind with each and every boundary He throws up. Because there just might be a train a-comin' that will crush me into a thousand pieces. so when my Father says, "Lie down!" I better lie down! (I haven't always...learned hot the hard way, too.)

There's the holding of His hand, too. The warmth of it in mine as my Father leads me along in love. He only disciplines me because of His great affection for this child of His. It is the Father's greatest joy to see me carry on His legacy of love, faith and self-control. To speak with me as a mature child, able to think as He does in the situations facing me on a daily basis. That I have caught what my Father has taught so that I am more and more acting and reacting as He would. I'm not perfect. Don't expect that. But with the sons of Korah, who wrote this psalm, I can say, "Teach me to respect You completely, because I praise You with all of my heart. You, my God and Father, have certainly saved me from death!"

 

PSALM 86 - Little g's

There is none like You among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like Yours. All the nations You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord, and shall glorify Your name. For You are great and do wondrous things. You alone are God. (Verses 8-10)

...we know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one. For although there may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"--yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
1 Corinthians 8:4-6

There is only one God with a capital G. Oh, there are other little g's trying to lord it over us, but they are not as powerful as they want to make us think. Idols, really. Manmade. Like movie stars. Or tyrants. Or the little Buddhas that stare at me in the nail salon as they sit, belly forward, surrounded by oranges. Pretty much anything can become an idol. Whatever becomes the most important thing in our lives. We may not know we are worshipping it until we realize we must have it or die. Alcohol, for instance. When drinking is more important than going home to family. Drugs, maybe. The high they give as they travel through the bloodstream to the brain telling us we must worship it or die. Some literally do--die, that is, for love of substance. It's perhaps not so obvious in our day, this idol worship. We aren't building a golden cow as the Israelites did in the wilderness and ascribing to what we just created out of gold some godlike power over us. The thing is, though, we are made to worship. To adore. Not to be adored. So the one we make into a god will topple and fall on us.

What then? Our little g's are at least visible. God we cannot see. Or touch. There is no longer an altar on which we can sacrifice to Him. No temple where He dwells in a resplendent glory. We trick ourselves with this thinking because a God we could access so easily wouldn't be the great God over all. How could He hold the world in His hands, fling stars and design galaxies if He were so small He could live forever, physically, in our midst? Our God would be too small, then.

In God's sweetness, He came down. We touched Him. Laughed with Him. God, through Jesus, looked into the eyes of those He'd made and pronounced His great love. Jesus ate our grain and drank our drink. Healed our bodies and forgave our sins. In synagogue, Messiah told the self-righteous that their rules were death and He is life. Dead people returned to life and worthless fig trees were put to death. Seas roared at us, but Jesus stepped out on them and walked the waves without a wake board. When there wasn't enough for five thousand people to eat, Jesus sat everyone down and fed them from five little loaves of bread and two fish. For this, we killed our God. Out of paradigm and irritating in His honesty, religion couldn't look at true righteousness without disgust. Pinned against a cross set up against the afternoon sky, Messiah cried out for our forgiveness, then commanded His Spirit to leave His broken body. God wasn't done, though, of course. Up and out of the tomb, raising Himself from the dead, Jesus lives still. The only true God. Our Lord. Every other idol is vain for it has no power in itself to deal with what we really need. With the reason we look for idols in the first place. We are empty.

On His last night with the disciples, Jesus promised to fill that empty space with the living water provided by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Joy unspeakable. Power unlimited. Access unprecedented. God, through Christ, in us!  The hope of glory. Charging our existence with dynamite for living. We look to our idol, as Christians, and feel Him stirring change in us. Creating love where there was none. Hope in the impossible. Peace in the storm. Power in the process. Oh, yes. The Lord is our God and there is none like Him. Throw away the lesser gods. They still leave us empty, wanting more. Only God, with a capital, can make our lives more than just an existence because He made us and knows why He did.