God's Wisdom Highest

Thinking about my ideas and God’s plans, the two stand in contrast in terms of goals, in more ways right now than I’ve really ever experienced.

That’s not to say my life has been trial-free in the past. And that’s certainly not to say I live a hard life.  I’m blessed.

Still, having plans change about weekend trips and home improvement projects fall into a different category than what I have been experiencing. Feeling God funnel me into the unknown specifics of what He wants through removing four major things; career change options, a favored sport, loved outreach methods, and specific lifelong hearth and home goals, at least seems like a different matter. Fitting through His funnel comes with some discomfort, and sacrifice.

But God’s smartest, His goals and motives are perfect, and — phew — He’s patient.

I’m glad His Spirit works within me, because no matter how hard I try, I can’t force, cajole or persuade myself to match everything I think, want and do up to His standards. That reminds me how high caliber His gift of grace is.

When I talk with my kids, I often need to help them see a situation from an adult perspective, whether the topic covers why even good church kids act like brats sometimes or prioritizing how to spend money when back-to-school shopping. But it’s my job to teach my daughters and son. It’s one way I prove my love for them. And it brings me joy.

When I think about it, the difference in wisdom between an adult and a child is far less than the difference between a follower of Christ and God. My children are much closer to being as wise as I am, than I am likely to be as wise as God. That’s why I worship Him. Everything about Him exceeds everything about me. I’m willing to let God be God — at least I want to be willing.

Wisdom Math

Take a look at this little basic subtraction illustration or example of what I mean.

Parent Wisdom – Child Wisdom = Human Maturity Wisdom Difference

God Wisdom – Follower of Christ Wisdom = Supernatural Wisdom vs. Created Human Wisdom Difference

Supernatural vs. Created Human Wisdom Difference > Human Maturity Wisdom Difference

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.
¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
   come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
   without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
   It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
¹² You will go out in joy
   and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
   will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
   will clap their hands.

Isaiah 55:8-12

What a joy and comfort to me that God’s ways and thoughts are higher. And that His word accomplishes the plan He set in motion. I love verse 11, because we have access to that word. The Word of the Bible, the Word who came in human form, Jesus Christ.  So, I can learn. And so can you.

To those who aren’t Christians, those of us who are don’t necessarily make sense. The Bible doesn’t make sense. God doesn’t make sense. Shoot, I often don’t know what God is up to when He’s working in and around me until (if) I am given hindsight, so how could I expect someone who doesn’t have a relationship with Him to get it?

Without God, humans label many types of worldly thinking as wise or logical. But whether we acknowledge Him or not, we can’t exceed our Creator.

²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 

1 Corinthians 1:22-25

Certainly, I may continue to struggle to determine what the difference is between His plans and mine. Perhaps temptation and the devil are working to damage my testimony and me. But I need to bear responsibility for my own attitudes, and priorities.

But, I know I delight in Him, so my desires are safe with Him. (See Psalm 37:4) As I continue to relax into whatever God’s plan is for me, to understand and step onto the solid places where He wants me to step, I believe I will see the Word of God, the love of God, unfold in a new and real way.

⁹ However, as it is written:

   “What no eye has seen,
   what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”^[a]—
   the things God has prepared for those who love him—

 ¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

   The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹ For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³ This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.^{[b] 14} The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵ The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶ for,

   “Who has known the mind of the Lord
   so as to instruct him?”^[c]

   But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:9-18

Because I have the mind of Christ, I know that even if I don’t achieve the goals I set, if I go where He leads, my life will testify to Him. My human side would prefer to accomplish what I intended, with God’s help, and glorify Him in that way.

But by His gentle hand, I pray to and know I will experience His peace and joy either way, shine out His light and bring Him, my Creator, great pleasure.

Bible passages copied from biblegateway.com

Photo and copy, Copyright © 2011 Helene Bergren All rights reserved.

Blessed to Relieve Hunger

I'll make you a great nation and bless you.

I'll make you famous; you'll be a blessing.

I'll bless those who bless you; those who curse you I'll curse. 

All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you."

Genesis 12:2 biblegateway.com

            Chatter at my parents’ maple desk where they took care of the farm and tax bookkeeping in the 1980s, centered around money, operating loans, debt, and feed, vet and seed bills. They were discreet; I was nosy. But my parents were honest, too.             

           I knew their concern as they learned about friends and acquaintances losing their farms. Newscasts bleeted about banks closing to a wave of bad debt-to-asset ratios. But I didn’t miss a meal.

            I remember Dad looking out the south window of our story-and-a-half farmhouse, and saying aloud, “The Lord will provide.”

            To this day, my mom insists that she and dad weren’t any better farm managers than anyone else. She credit’s God’s grace in this area, and they never lost their farm. That in absolutely no way says their friends and neighbors who did were loved less, or out of favor with Him.

            I love the grace of God. I love that He provides. For myself, for my siblings and for my parents, I am grateful. I love Him. I would love Him regardless the outcome of the farm crisis for my family of origin. Now, I wonder how He can use me, farmers today, and you to provide for the hungry.

            Growing up on a farm instilled in me a great respect for life, and for those who raise livestock, and grow feed for our animals, and food for our tables. So, the connection, for me, between people dying of hunger and the farmers I respect is pretty obvious.

            In America, each U.S. farmer produces food and fiber for 155 people here and abroad, according to American Farm Bureau Federation. That deserves applause. Go ahead!

            But today, we face a global food crisis. Check out the UN’s food security site for information detailing that at http://www.un-foodsecurity.org/. I’m not a big fan of the UN, but this information matches what I’m hearing in the ag industry.

            But here’s the deal. We can help. In America, only 10 percent of our disposable income goes to purchase food, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service. In Pakistan, it’s 50 percent. The Philippines, 38 percent; Jordan, 43 percent; and China, 32 percent.  Face it; we’re blessed with higher incomes, and lower costs than so many other people.

            Samaritan Purse’s gift catalog choices like providing dairy animals, livestock and stocking fish ponds provide not just one-time food relief, but also sustainable food sources. And the love of Christ.

            I respect how Reformed Church World Service offers practical assistance, like food pantry donations and goats. I love the eternal difference made with the devotion to reaching people for Christ.

            So you want to help? Getting that food to the people who are hungry presents a challenge. But many responsible ministries exist, serving Christ and reaching out to the hungry here in America and worldwide.

           

Won’t you do something today to help?

    1. Go to this site:

        https://www.rca.org/givercws

    2. Type in your donation amount

    3. Under designation, choose Hunger/Food Pantries

    4. Finish the form

    5. Praise God! You’re blessed to be a blessing!

     Or

1.     Go to this site:
https://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/Giving/gift_catalog/

2.   Select what you want to give from categories like Farms and Livestock,
Ministry to Children and Meeting Crisis Needs

3.     Click the Complete your donation button at the bottom of the page

4.     Finish the process

5.     Praise God! You’re blessed to be a blessing!

©2011 Helene Bergren. All rights reserved.

War and Reconciliation

Astride a thundering, black horse, a woman, long, unkempt, brown hair whipping wildly in the wind, raises her sword, and points the muscular animal straight at Him. Straight at Him. My God.

Left to the nature of this world, I am at odds with God. We all are. Greed, selfishness, immorality — unholiness lures humanity. We need the Savior, the one true hero available to all mankind, so that we can be allied with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, all one God.

I still war with temptations, with unseen things of this world, but my eternity is locked up tight, safe and sound. And God is for me. Reconciliation accomplished.

Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:11 NIV

But for Jesus' death and resurrection, and the faith God planted inside me, God and I would be adversaries. What an astonishing way to become reconciled — through the goodness of the very One I've wronged.

What a joy that His desire for relationship with me is so great. What a gift. What incomprehensible love. Thank You, Jesus.

Helene Bergren © 2011 All rights reserved.

Peace with God

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

-Romans 5:1 NIV

Reflections

This makes me think fo peace in facing death, in a long-term illness situation, or in a sudden situation that may provoke fear - yet we/I have peace, factually, with God, because of Jesus, what He did, and because of my faith, which He gave me, and the grace He extended to me. The peace with God is a fact for me, because of my relationship with God through Christ.

This leads to my thinking about the comfort that the permanence of salvation provides. We need to be careful, and not let worry settle in if Satan or other people or circumstances cause us to think or feel not at peace or out of sync with God. I want my feeling of peace with God to refelct the unchangeable truth that I am at peace with God because of Jesus. That truth is a gift!

*In a small group I am participating in we are completing a workbook called "Can We Talk?" by Priscilla Shirer. The strategy the author encourages is to paraphase a passage, pull out spiritual truths and lessons from it, pose questions about it and how it applies individually, and plan and pin how to carry that out. It's been a great experience this summer even with all the interruptions this season brings.

Photo and Text © Helene Bergren, July 2011

God's Control

Psalm 51:10-12

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

(from biblegateway.com)

Control. I just want to be in the driver’s seat for a little bit in life, at the moments when God chooses a path for me or mine, or a method that I wouldn’t.

Good thing I’m not. I love the free will God gives me, yet I need His loving sovereignty. While accepting His timing, His plans, and His purposes presents challenges, truly, that power and control are integral to His goodness. He draws a line in the sand in my life, or inserts a season of waiting for rescue or blessing, when He chooses. And it’s protection, or character development, or some other good result. I just may not always know it.

Listen, right now, I am in a good place in life. God continues to bless me with the privilege of staying home with my children at least part-time. My husband and I enjoy one another’s company. In our home, we experience joy in simple blessings, and despite some understandable health issues in my family, we’re not weighted with great burdens.

Still, I feel God reining me in on some goals about an eventual career, and home. I missed deadlines I had set. But He’s given me some ‘Not yet,’ answers. At times it hurts my feelings, and I feel inadequate, but I don’t have the all-knowing, all-seeing viewpoint God does. Father knows best. And He values and loves me. You, too.

Still, I need His Spirit to click things in my mind, and help me to understand, and humbly accept, His ways. He simply won’t always show me in great detail and precision why He allows some of the rough patches in life – miscarriage, family illnesses, and sin.

Nor will He consistently show why He gives me unexpected (and undeserved) blessings, three healthy, joy-bringing children, life in a community and a country that are generally physically safe, a God-glorifying church where I can serve, and access to medical care, to name a few.

So, to have a real relationship with anyone, I need to be willing to take what I would choose, and what I wouldn’t. Relationships require commitment on both sides, not just one. The same holds true for my relationship with God, though He is faithful even when I am not. In the end, it will make me a better person, a more faithful follower of Christ. One with a vision for life and people much more closely aligned to His.

Photo and text ©Helene Bergren 2011. All rights reserved.

God Hears

Free Trinity Mission sits among the mesas of the high desert, its people reaching out to the Navajo Nation.

God hears. And answers.

Sometimes I have experiences with God that make such an impression on me that for weeks or months afterward, I continue to think about the moment, the impression He left, and the lesson He gave me.

Today, it’s May 23. Two months ago, my three kids and I had just returned from Mission Navajo, where a team of adults, teenagers and children from Prairie Ridge Church, Ankeny, Iowa, served in the Window Rock, Ariz., Tse Bonito, N.M. and Tohlakai, N.M., areas. We painted, constructed stairs, cleaned carpets and hauled away junk at a Christian school. A team built handicap-accessible deck entries for the elderly. We distributed food donations.

Our team leader and friend, raised on the Rez, assigned one woman on the team the task of finding a bed for a nine-year-old boy without one. So, she and some others on the team assembled, painted, and delivered a bed that a church member back home made. Blankets, too. We (not meaning me) chopped wood, helping to provide for the main source of heat on the Rez. We made friends. We shared in worship with these people we came to love.

But one day, I was feeling a particular yearning to touch someone on an individual basis. To offer practical, basic help. I wanted to be the one to fill a need. To love on someone personally.

I stood in the basement of Free Trinity Mission, Tohlakai, N.M., (http://freetrinity.org/) a ministry partner church there, and our home base. I stood alone at the bottom of the wooden steps, ready to climb them, and head outside to help two of the men on the team supervise my son and another boy while they chopped wood. I sighed and said aloud, “I just want to help someone.”

I made my way outside, across the church parking lot cum basketball court, to the wood-chopping area, and shot photos of the boys taking turns chopping wood with a little hatchet, and the men, hard at work. I like to think both pairs were swinging axes for Jesus. I enjoyed taking some photos, and documenting a fun Chinese foreign exchange student’s help, as he stacked wood.

Walking back across the parking lot with one of the men a few minutes later, an old SUV pulled up, and a little, elderly Navajo woman approached us. She looked so sweet to me.

When we met up, we greeted her. She explained that she knows Rev. and Mother Gardner, who lead the church and mission. And she asked us if Rev. Gardner could dig an outdoor toilet for her. No kidding.

We quickly started asking questions about how deep it would need to be, how wide, where she lives and more. Budding sanitation engineers, are we? I was and am astonished at the need. At some point, we remembered that our host in Navajoland is well-equipped to help with this, using his backhoe. I think that’s what it’s called. No need to grab our spades and shovels quite yet.

But, I was privileged to help this woman in other ways.

We had trekked from Iowa with a trailer loaded with donations of winter coats and other items. As I talked with the lady, I learned about her new grand-baby. Her son. His girlfriend. She tells me she cooks on an outdoor stove. And that even inside their home – evidently walled only with a Tyvek-type of house wrap – the wind whips through where she sleeps in the living room.

Having strolled into the church with her, I learned her name is Elsie. We stood in the red-carpeted room with boxes of donated coats and other items from our church. She told me her coat size, and I pulled out a burgundy microfiber winter coat, about knee length. Perfect fit. And she liked it. The first coat she tried on was the one she wanted. She was completely satisfied with it. I saw God’s hand at work for her. What a blessing for her, and an honor for me.

Of course, I thought, ‘She needs one of the blankets we brought. How about two?’ I knew it must be bone-chillingly cold in that makeshift house, set along the base of a reddish brown mesa.

It comforts me to know that in the harsher months, this Navajo woman stays with relatives in Phoenix. Many of the elderly Dine` people find better places to stay through the sometimes threatening high desert mountain winters.

The sun streamed in through the windows of this former classroom. An old teacher’s desk sits as a reminder of a different kind of ministry our partners here used to provide. The smell of the cardboard boxes and clothes subtly hung in the air.

Elsie spoke to me about her hard life. Many details. But she felt gratefulness to God, and to her brothers and sisters in Christ.

I asked her what else she might need. Pots and pans to cook with outside, over the fire. In my home, I have a nice, bisque smooth top GE.  It’s inside my kitchen. I agree to arrange for Elsie’s pots and pans.

I walked her into the shower rooms that are under construction, where we stored the royal blue reusable grocery bags full of food staples. We stuffed them full with flour, Spam, cooking oil and the like. It’s this green-era’s twist on the food basket. I gave her one. She appreciated the gift.

I walked her back to the vehicle, where her son waited. He expressed his thanks, as well. An ache in my heart told me that I didn’t want to part with this woman who God used to bless me.

I thought then, and consider now, about being the hands and feet of Jesus to the poor and oppressed, to Elsie. I think about how she was like Jesus to me. Because when we give to or love someone who belongs to Christ, we are truly giving to or loving Him. Either way, to God alone be the glory.

What a lesson I have learned about God’s listening ear through the experience He orchestrated with Elsie.  When I said aloud, “I just want to help someone,” I truly wasn’t intentionally praying.

What a loving, generous Father I have that He would answer, even when I wasn’t really talking to Him. Praise Him for eavesdropping. Certainly, I wouldn’t say to Him, ‘I wasn’t talking to You.’  I love His ever-present help. I love that my God is all-knowing, all-hearing, all-seeing.

His loving answer to my non-prayer excites me. What does this potentially mean? More than I could ever ask or imagine, it seems to me.

What generosity, too, that God would mold my heart enough to His that two months later, my experience with Elsie remains with me, as a true gift, lesson and blessing from the Maker of the universe. The Maker of Elsie. The Maker of me.

©Helene Bergren 2011. All rights reserved.

You Are: 2 Tim. 2 Prayer

You Are

You are faithful

            When I am not

You are strong

            When I am weak

You see the way

And know the outcome

            When I do not.

You fill me with love for others,

            When my ability to reach out and love runs low.

You show me my frailties, and gently, my mistakes,

            When I need to express compassion and mercy and grace.

You warm me,

            When I am cold —

Soften my heart,

            When I feel anger, disappointment, distrust.

You help me look to You,

            When I want earthly blessings.

You reward me

for hard work.

You spread Your Good News.

You are faithful,

            When my faith falters.

You show me your Truth,

            And I will not deny You.

You are the solid foundation.

You know me as Yours.

You guide me in righteous living,

You cleanse me from my temptations and errors,

You lead me as I chase after

                        Your righteousness, faith, love and peace

                        with my brothers and sisters in Christ,

                        Who seek You with genuine hearts of love.

You love me

And coax me into a life of steadfast grace

            In Jesus Christ.

Inspired by 2 Timothy 2

©Helene Bergren. All Rights Reserved.