IMMERSED

Today, while sipping my morning coffee, I watched a Dove as she fed at my bird feeder on my deck rail. My feeder is a sort of makeshift feeder if you will, one that isn't so pretty but it does the job. It consists of a birdhouse that I purchased at the flea market and on either side, two plastic food containers for holding the bird seed. Yeah, like I said, not pretty but utilitarian completely. As I watched the dove feasting on the seed I noticed that she must have been hungry because it seemed that she couldn't get it fast enough. Then I laughed out loud because she stepped over the edge of the container and sat down right in the middle of the seed and just ate around herself. I think one reason I laughed so hard is my complete relating to her situation. There have been days, I thought to myself, that I was lonely or depressed or just bored and I have spent the day surrounding myself with food to alleviate the problem. I felt like I was eating around myself being fully immersed in the middle of my stuff! This dove was a vivid reminder of just how "immersed" we can get in our issues. It's as though nothing else matters or we don't even notice how consumed we  can get while trying to alleviate our pain by eating around ourselves. It's a funny and ridiculous picture but I'm sure it happens to others as well. Honestly! Tell me I'm not alone in this! At any rate, if you can relate at all just ask yourself this question. . ."what is it that I feel that I've fully immersed myself in and I am mindlessly medicating myself with?" You may be so immersed in your work that you are sleeping all the time and you feel that life is passing you by. You may be suffering grief so badly over a loss of someone that you are self medicating with drugs or alcohol. Or maybe you are so caught up in the mundane things of life like house cleaning, wiping little noses and picking up endless toys or laundry that you feel like you are immersed and drowning in your own weariness. Whatever that looks like just know that the issue isn't in what you are immersed in but the problem or issue comes from our response to that immersion. We can sit in the middle of our stuff and mundanely eat around our pain or we can be like that dove who, just now I might add, stood up and stepped out of where she was and flew off to the rest of her day. We can respond by changing our responses. We can change our obsessive working hours of overtime to get more of the almighty dollar and spend more time with our families instead of sleeping the time away from fatigue. We can grieve for those lost loved ones but reach out to others for companionship and help in the midst of our grief instead of closing the door and sitting alone in our stuff. We can get some housework done, maybe not all of it and then allow those toys to lay there on the floor while we take time for ourselves and our children by getting outside or going to the park. That stuff will always be there to do but our children won't. So what are you immersing yourself in and what is your response to that immersion? The best answer I can give you is one that either you've heard. many many times or one that you don't desire to hear at all. The truth of it, for me at least, has been to fully immerse my self in my relationship with God through worship, fellowship with him in prayer and by the reading of His word. This was the crucial key to my responses to problems and issues when they arose. I no longer want to "eat around myself" medicating my pain with food but what I have immersed myself in and fed upon has been the thing that has equipped me to step out of the seed bin and go on with my day in a victorious and purposeful manner. It has been the answer! You know that little term " you are what you eat?", well, it's true. When you immerse and eat upon the word of God and feast in His presence and worship Him and send up your prayers to Him He will fill you and guide you through your pain, problems and issues. The more deeply we are immersed in a relationship with God the more you love Him and the more you'll look to Him for help. It says in II Timothy 3:16-17" All scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be throughly equipped for every good work". So, your immersion question is answered! Immerse yourself in Christ, his word and a relationship with Him and He will be the only medication or remedy to your issues or pain. Praying for you today my friends that you will be free from "eating around yourself" and equipped with His bread of life for newness of life! 

The Blue Speckled Bowl

Who of us can really pinpoint the moment in our lives when a friendship gives birth? Thinking back, I cannot put my finger on the exact day or hour when I ”just knew” we’d be friends but I can tell you this, it started with the gift of a blue speckled bowl. 

That may sound very strange to some but my friendship with this beautiful lady grew wings of sorts when she gifted me with a blue bowl to do my baking in. That was some 30 odd years ago and to this day I can truthfully say that that worn blue speckled bowl is my very favorite. It has seen many a cake, loaf of bread, batch of cookies, picnic salad and much more fill its walls and every time I pull it from the cupboard I can see the face of the friendship that it formed. 

We were created in our Fathers image and we were meant to have relationships and friendships with others. That's just how God designed it. From David and Jonathan to Elijah and Elisha to Paul and Timothy and Ruth and Naomi, friendships demonstrate and model Gods great love for us.

I personally believe that in these days and times we are seeing a ”friendship famine” of sorts so everytime I look at my blue speckled bowl brimming with the next delight to come from my kitchen I'm reminded of the fullness of blessing of friendships that I have in my own life. But sadly, not all can say that. Society has found itself replacing flesh-and-blood relationships with digital friendships and long meaningful conversations with text messages. If you don't feel like I'm totally correct here then please, next time you’re dining out at a restaurant look around. How many people are engaged in what looks to be meaningful conversation and how many are on their cell phones not making eye contact with their dinner partners? What these kinds of so-called ”relationships” do is quite the opposite in reality. They isolate! 

I want to plead with you to live your days out from here on valuing the gift of friendships and true relationships. We were made to reflect our wondrous Creator and ”wired” to have fullness of relationships. To quote pastor and theologian, Jonathan Edwards. . . . ”The well being and happiness of society is friendships. Tis the highest happiness of all moral agents”. We have strayed from the path of this happiness that is supposed to be experienced vertically with God and horizontally with one another. 

In Hebrews we are called to ”exhort one another everday” and to ”encourage one another”. (Heb 3:13) 

The sheer truth of the matter on friendships is that they ”half our sorrows”. We need friends and companions to sit down with us on our dark days and remind us of Jesus’ heart for sinners and sufferers. One of the most amazing things we can give or receive during those times is the gift of companionship. Friends and companions can cut those sorrows in half by simply being there and encouraging us with the right words.

Friendship and solid relationships also point us to the cross because on the cross is where we see displayed the greatest act of love and friendship that was ever known. Jesus said, ”Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”. (John 15:13)

Let's get the order of things back in order! We must treasure God above friendship, thank God for friendship and enjoy and display God through friendship. 

So, as today in preparation for my families Easter dinner I look once more at my blue speckled bowl and think what ingredients it will hold this time as I use it. My friends’ face once more comes to my mind as do the words; kindness, compassion, sacrifice, selflessness, time, caring, trust, and love. All amazing ingredients to a great deal of happiness and joy. I'm thankful for the gift of my friend and for every time I'm reminded of that gift because of a blue speckked bowl.