Tag: reminder

Stone of Help

jamieahughes2 Comments

As I mentioned in my most recent post, the last several months have been hard ones at our house. We’ve been under a fairly high amount of stress, and as a result, none of us has been our best selves as of late. No, that’s putting it too mildly. We’ve all been impatient with one another, unloving and prone to anger. Thankfully, the source of all that strife is in the rearview mirror (aside from a few little odds and ends that we’ll be dealing with for a few more months, but they’re totally manageable).

Now, we have a “mess” to clean up. We have to go back over the last year or so and really take a hard look at ourselves, both as individuals and as a family. To that end, I decided some time ago that we needed to have a kind of “reset,” something involving a spiritual application and a project we would all do together, something that we could point to and say, “This is when we made a decision to do, be, and live better.”

The idea for exactly what that something would be hit me when a co-worker shared Ephesians 4:2 from The Living Bible: “Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” If that ain’t a great verse for a family on the mend, I don’t know what is!

We did a pretty deep dive into the first sixteen verses of the chapter:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

We talked about growing in Christlikeness. We talked about the importance of love first. We talked about unity and how to get and maintain it, as well as why it is important in a family and in the body of Christ. And the way we maintain that unity is through four things (all mentioned in verse two): humility, gentleness, patience, and love. So that’s what we chose to focus on for our project.

First, I bought some supplies on Amazon—acrylic paint, paint pens, a sealant, and a bag of large basalt stones for painting. (You can enlarge any photo by clicking on it.)

I figured it would be a good idea to paint the rocks with the base coat before the event, so that’s what I did. Two coats of white acrylic paint were plenty to prepare our “canvasses.”

We sat down with the paint pens and some scratch paper. I told everyone to come up with a design that would help them remember what the word meant (per our discussion).

After about thirty minutes, we sealed them, and they were ready to display alongside a print of the verse I hired someone on Etsy to design. We chose to put everything in the foyer of our house because it’s a space we all walk through multiple times a day. We have to pass it often, and that keeps it on our minds. It’s a way to practice the commandment found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

The act of putting it on a wall also gave us a chance to discuss exactly what an Ebenezer or “stone of help” is (1 Samuel 7 and Joshua 4). We explained to the kids how Israel used them to memorialize what God had done for them, to keep from forgetting his kindness and deliverance. And that’s precisely what God did for our family—he protected us (both from the world and ourselves) and delivered us in our time of greatest need. Amen.

Here are close ups of the rocks we painted. (If you’re wondering, I’m “be gentle.”)

“It Is Well To Be Bound…”

jamieahughes5 Comments

I came to salvation by one of the most wonky, serpentine, and circuitous paths known to man. Like millions of kids, I went to Vacation Bible School each summer, and when I was seven or eight, I felt led to go forward and give my life to Jesus Christ. I remember speaking to a preacher in a blue three-piece suit with a head of perfectly styled hair (courtesy of Vitalis and a generous measure of black dye) and the whitest set of chompers I’d ever seen. I remember him talking me through the Romans Road, praying with me, and asking me, “Doesn’t it feel good to know you’re saved?” Naturally, I nodded enthusiastically because it felt great. Awesome, in fact.

And then nothing else was done. No one really followed up with me and took it upon him or herself to disciple me. (Yes, I know that’s a noun, but I’m making it a verb for the purpose of this post.) Everyone made the assumption that because I went to church and “looked the part,” I understood exactly what things like salvation and eternal security meant. As a result, I grew up as a sort of “half-baked Christian.” I looked right and smelled right sitting on the shelf, but if someone had pressed me, I would have collapsed just like the meringue I was. In fact, that’s exactly what I did when I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and I had a true crisis. Thank goodness I did. That was what laid me low and compelled me to seek His face.

I often wonder how much farther along I would be in my Christian walk if I had been properly taught and guided by a spiritual mentor, if someone had stepped in the gap for me. There’s nothing to be gained in lamenting the fact I didn’t, but I sometimes have question mark moments in my faith where I repeatedly ram my head against something like Mario.

I hear people talk about spiritual matters, saying things like, “God told me that…” or “I just felt the Spirit leading me to…” and I start to have small panic attacks, wondering, “I’ve been a Christian for decades. Why is that I’m not hearing or perceiving these things? Is there something wrong with my faith?” And, of course, there’s the thought, “Am I really saved?”

I think the difficulty arises because of a human desire for spectacle. I sometimes wish I had a salvation experience that was more, I don’t know, instantaneous. Part of me longs for a moment of which I can say, “THAT was when it happened. I was never the same afterwards.” The people to whom Jesus witnessed were much the same; they were looking for huge, showy events to convince them of His deity, but that’s not how God works. He speaks in a “still, small voice” instead, one that takes a discerning ear to hear (1 Kings 19:12). That’s why Jesus chastises them concerning His capacity to heal. Frustrated, He states, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe” (John 4:48). However, despite their error, the sick child they wanted Him to heal began to recuperate the moment Jesus said the word. It all took place well out of sight of the masses.

My doubts, though small, are the gaps the devil tries to put his bony fingers in so he can pry me open and strip me away from God. (I’ve come to realize that the fact that he’s trying so hard is evidence that I’m saved and sanctified. After all, why would he mess with someone who already belongs to him?) And there were times in the past when I fell for his lies and stepped away from God, perhaps because I was ashamed. Of course, I was always saved, and I could never lose my salvation. But I didn’t understand that until much, much later. It’s so simple that it’s terribly easy to over-interpret it as we search for what we interpret as “divine.” The apostle Paul plainly states the truth in Romans 10:9-10:

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

I read a passage from Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman a few days ago that truly spoke to my heart on this issue. In it, he discusses Psalm 118:27, “The LORD is God, and He has given us light; bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.” The imagery is of the Old Testament and references the atoning sacrifices the Jewish people were required to perform; however, there is application for the Christian. Why? This passage speaks of the coming of Christ–the Sacrifice for all. We must always remember who He is, what He did, and what that action truly means. Cowman writes:

“Is not this altar inviting thee? Shall we not ask to be bound to it, that we may never be able to start back from our attitude of consecration? There are times with life is full or roseate light, and we choose the cross; at other times, when the sky is grey, we shrink from it. It is well to be bound. Wilt Thou bind us, most blessed Spirit, and enamor us with the cross, and let us never leave it? Bind us with the scarlet cord of redemption, and the golden cord of love, and the silver cord of Advent-hope, so we’ll not go back from it or wish for another lot than to be the humble partners of our Lord in His pain and sorrow!”

Sometimes, when I’ve slipped up or I start comparing myself to other Christians and judging myself by human standards, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking I’ve never truly been granted salvation. I know that it is utterly and completely incorrect, but in my weaker moments, it’s easy to think this way.

Oswald Chambers writes in his masterwork, My Utmost for His Highest, “Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians’ lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God. [We tell ourselves] ‘This is not salvation— it is not simple enough.’ He says, in effect, ‘Look to Me and you are saved,’ not ‘You will be saved someday.’ We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, ‘Look to Me, and be saved…'”  

My focus has too often been on the wrong people and things rather than the cross. That’s why I decided to make a little visual reminder for myself I’m calling my Binding Cord.  It is merely symbolic and has no “magical” powers. However, when I look at it, I am reminded of Mr. Cowman’s assertion that I am bound to the cross. I am staked there by Christ Himself, and there is nothing in heaven or on earth that can pull me away. I stand on the promise of Jesus, the one recorded in John 10:27-29: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (emphasis mine).

The first three passes of fifteen…

I’m not crafty by any stretch of the imagination, so I went the simple “friendship bracelet” route. I made just short of a billion of these in middle school, and the process came back fairly quickly. Using a pillow (covered in a jaunty IKEA pillowcase) and a few pieces of thread, I started knotting my bracelet together.

Notice the red thread…

I didn’t always keep the two strings I wasn’t looping taut enough, and as a result, the red started to bleed through and show between the knots. At first, it enraged me because I wanted this bracelet to be perfect, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was symbolically fitting. After all, the blood of Christ washed away all my sins—past, present, and future. There is no part of my life or self that it has not fully permeated. It is the reason I can know His love (gold) and have hope (silver). The scarlet thread symbolizes what truly liberates me; it is the “tie that binds” eternally.

It’s not perfect, but then again, neither am I.

The end result was a little less polished than I wanted, and I’m sure I’ll try to make another one before long. However, it’s serving its purpose for me.

If you’re struggling the same way I did, I’d love to speak with you and help you come to a better understanding of salvation. You can contact me at emeraldelf (at) gmail (dot) com. Also, if you would like one of these bracelets as a reminder for yourself, I’d be happy to make it and mail it to you free of charge. Please contact me via email or in the comments section below if you’re interested.

Soli Deo Gloria!