The Road Through Ephesus... Mysterious Plans Revealed Ephesians 3:3

I'm slightly distracted today. I got a new phone last night and having to sit in class and write is torture right now compared to what I want to do which is play on my phone.  It's the first smart phone I've ever had so I'm pretty excited and it just does so much more than my old, non-smart phone.  But I'm going to try to plow through it.  I'm playing some worship music through my headphones so hopefully that will help focus my attention the right direction.

Let's start, shall we?

Ephesians 3:3

"As I briefly wrote earlier, God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me."

I want to start out by saying that I feel the beginning of this verse is slightly ironic.  When did Paul ever write anything briefly?  John, Peter, Jude: those were some brief letters.  But, Paul's letters?  Those are usually long.  Paul likes to use words.  I think we might have gotten along well.  If you've ever gotten a text from me you know that I don't send short texts.  I send 3-6 texts per message.  My old phone had a word count limit and my messages would routinely take at least two, but usually were about 3 or more.  All that to say that I don't know if Paul is trying to make a joke or not, but it sure seems ironic to me.

But back to the verse.

Look at the second phrase. "God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me."

I love that about God's nature.  If He wants you to do something, He will reveal his "mysterious" plans to you.  In the revelation, they are no longer mysterious.

I don't know about you, but I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what God's plans are.  But here's the thing: God has already revealed what I need to know.  Just because I want to plan out the next however many years of my life doesn't mean that I need to.  I need to trust that God will reveal those plans when I'm ready for them.

If you're a planner like me, that's a hard pill to swallow at times.

I like to know what I'm doing five minutes from now and five years from now.  But God won't reveal something until we need it.  He won't reveal something until we're ready for it.

That's also comforting to know.  Because if I'm feeling overwhelmed with a task that I feel is God's plan for me, then I know that God has prepared me for it.  I know that God has given me what I need to accomplish HIS plans.  And I know that He will give me the strength to do it.

God's plans are good and perfect.  They are to give us hope, purpose, and a future with Him (Jeremiah 29:11).

We also need to remember that these are God's plans that He is revealing.  I think sometimes we wonder why God isn't revealing something to us and it might be because those are OUR plans not His.  Our plans need to be surrendered.  Then God can begin the process of replacing our plans with His.  Then HIS plans will be revealed.

What plans are you waiting for God to reveal to you?  Are they  your plans or God's?  Do you need to surrender your plans so that you can learn what God has planned for you?  Do you need to step out into the plans God has for you in faith, trusting that He has equipped you for them?

What do you need to do next?

The Road Through Ephesus... Special Responsibilities Ephesians 3:2

It's going to be hot this week.  By the weekend it could be up close to 100 degrees.  However, as I write this I am wearing a sweatshirt because the air is on at school and I'm cold.  So the question is, how do I dress for 90+ degrees and really cold A/C?  The answer:  There is no good option.  Layering only works so well.

But anyway... enough of my complaining.  Now that we've started this Ephesians study back up as of yesterday, are you ready to jump back in today?

I'm going to pretend that you answered yes.  Because even if you answered no, I'm still going to keep typing.

Here's our verse for today:

Ephesians 3:2

"assuming, by the way, that you know God gave me the special responsibility of extending his grace to you Gentiles."

I feel like Paul is being rather sarcastic here.  That phrase, "assuming, by the way,..." seems like the church in Ephesus should know this, but something about them is telling Paul that they don't.  I don't know.  Maybe it's just me.  But in almost every version I read I get the impression of sarcasm.  Read this verse in a few different versions and see if you get the same impression.

When Paul starts this verse, I can see him remembering.  He's doing what we talked about yesterday.  Reminding himself and the Gentiles why he's in their lives.  And that it's God's grace that does all the work.  But that's not what I want to focus on here.  There's a specific phrase that really jumped out at me as I was reading this.

"...the special responsibility..."

The Gentiles were part of Paul's special responsibility.  I think we each have special responsibilities.  God has made each of us unique and with special gifts and talents.  We each have specific and special responsibilities in God's family.  If we were all the same, nothing would ever get done and I have a hard time imagining many people coming to Christ if we all tried to be just one part of the body or family.

I think we can often get jealous of the special responsibilities other people have too.  Somehow everyone else's "specialness", seems more special than ours.  But God has uniquely given you a special responsibility too.  Maybe it's to reach your friend and bring them closer to Jesus.  That may be something only you can do.  Maybe it's to write a blog entry that touches someone's heart with the words God gave you.  Maybe it's to snap a photograph that somehow portrays God's glory and splendor. Maybe it's something else.


Whatever it is, it is YOUR responsibility.

And if you are envying someone else's responsibility, then you are wasting your own.

What is your special responsibility?  What has God purposefully gifted you for?  What can you do that no one else can do just like you?

Start doing it.

The Road Through Ephesus... Remembering Ephesians 3:1

I haven't done this in a while.  Moving back to Michigan, starting my MA, and getting a new job has kept me busier than I would have liked.  I'm still working on the MA, but I am currently taking a two week class where I just get to sit and write for hours.  It's pure bliss and I'm hoping to catch up on our Ephesians series.

The last time I wrote about Ephesians we were finishing the last verse of chapter 2.  And that was over a year ago.  If you need a refresher of what we've talked about so far in Ephesians, look for the cluster of words on my blog.  When you find it, click Ephesians and you should find all the entries there.  For now though, I think we should just jump into chapter 3.  Sound good?

Okay, here it is:

Ephesians 3:1


"When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles..."


I really like this verse.  Partly, because it has an ellipsis at the end.  I think Paul might have been a little ADD because he starts this thought here and doesn't finish it until verse 14.  He gets sidetracked talking about other things.  Important things, but other things none the less.


But look at how the verse starts: "When I think of all this..."  Paul is intentionally choosing to remember.  In this case, he is remembering everything he just wrote.  He's remembering that the Gentiles are called.  That they are no longer outsiders.  That they are holy.  


These people who the Jewish people thought were so far from God are able to have a relationship with Him now.


That's amazing.


What's also amazing is that Paul is choosing to remember this.  He is choosing to focus on the fact that these are now his brothers and sisters in Christ and God has called Paul to serve them.  Paul has been taken captive by Christ for the benefit of the Gentiles, so that they too can know the Good News of Jesus.


Wow.


I think we sometimes choose to forget instead of choosing to remember.  Paul didn't forget the Gentiles' past.  He didn't forget who they used to be and how they were so far from God.


We need to remember that too.  We need to remember how far we were from God.  How broken our relationship with Him was.  We need to remember how Jesus found us and how He redeemed us.  Not because we want to live in the past.   Not because that's who we are anymore.  But because, Jesus saved us.  He rescued us.  He forgave us.


Remembering reminds us of His mercy.  It reminds us of His grace.  It reminds us of the incredibly high price He paid to ransom us.  We need to remember our past.


There's a song by Point of Grace that has these words in it:

But it's the memory of 

the place you brought me from

that keeps me on my knees

even though I'm free

Heal the wound, but leave the scar

A reminder of how merciful you are...

Don't let me forget

Everything you've done for me

Don't let me forget

The beauty in the suffering

We can't forget. We have been saved for a purpose.  We are to point others to Him.  How can we do that if we forget where we came from and how messed up we were?

So.  Today, remember.

Writing and Prayer: What Doesn't Impress Your English Teachers or God

I started a new job a few weeks ago: I'm a writing center coordinator at a local college.  Part of my job requires tutoring students (which I love).  This last week I had a session that made me think of the way we pray.

Now I know you may be thinking, "Writing? Praying?  I just don't see the connection, Holly."  Well, wait just a minute and I think you'll get where I'm headed here.

When I sat down to tutor this week with the student who had come in to see me, I thought it was going to be a fairly normal session. And in many ways it was.  However, when I asked the student to point out his thesis statement, I was a bit confused with what he pointed out.  It wasn't that I doubted that this was what the student thought his thesis statement was; it was more along the lines of I couldn't understand what he was trying to say.  Usually when that's the case I tend to think it might have to do with some grammar errors or an idea that I'm not familiar with, but this time was different.

This time there were so many "big" words in the sentence that the sentence had lost meaning.

When I asked the student what his main point was, he was able to articulate it.  But when I told him to use what he had just said as his thesis statement, he claimed that it didn't sound academic enough.

Oftentimes, we feel the same way with prayer.

We think our prayers have to have all these big words that no one understands anymore.  Thees and thous have to be included and the more it sounds like it came right out of the King James Version of the Bible the better it reaches God's ears.

Well.  That's just not true.

There's a story that Jesus tells in the Bible about two men praying.  One very "religious" man stood in front of everyone and prayed a fairly pretentious prayer: "I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector!  I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income." (Luke 18:11b-12)

The other man, a despised tax collector, was a different story.  His prayer went something like this: "O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner." (Luke 18:13b)  He wouldn't even lift his head to look toward the heavens and beat his chest.  He didn't come close, but instead stood at a difference.




And Jesus says that this second prayer of the second man caused him to live justified before God.

A humble heart.  Simple words.  Repentance.  Conversation.  Honesty.  

These are what prayer is about.

What this student I was tutoring reminded me is that English teachers aren't impressed by your big, fancy, pretentious words.

And, frankly, they don't impress God either.

He already sees your heart.  He knows what you're thinking.  Stop trying to impress him and just communicate with him.  That's what makes his heart happy.

Disturbed

I'm reading through the New Testament with a friend right now and over the last week, I've found the word "disturbed" twice in my readings, so of course I wanted to search it, see what the original Greek was... You know, all that fun stuff that us word geeks like to do :-)


What I found was that the two instances that I found the word "disturbed" weren't actually the same in the original Greek.  But the meanings were still really cool and I still really want to talk about both of them so, here it goes... 


The first verse is found in Matthew 2:3.  The setting is when the wisemen approach King Herod with the news that Jesus, the King of the Jews, the Messiah, was born.  They were looking for where he might be.  This was Herod's reaction to the news and what struck me wasn't really Herod's reaction but rather the reaction of everyone in Jerusalem.  Take a look at the verse for a second:




³ King Herod was deeply disturbed when he heard this, as was everyone in Jerusalem.

Everyone in Jerusalem was "deeply disturbed".


So, this lead me to my wondering about what "disturbed" meant in this context.  Partly because I'm interested in words, but partly because everyone had this reaction to the news about Jesus and I wanted a little more information about what that reaction was.  What I found was that the word translated disturbed here has the connotation of agitation, restlessness, to stir up, to trouble.  Most of the definitions I found seemed to have a negative affect.  But it's the reaction that strikes me.  It was a pretty involved reaction.


That reaction lead me to this thought:


Our reaction to Jesus is never neutral and we always have a reaction to him.  


Jesus didn't come so we could have a comfortable easy life.  He came to shake things up.  His presence should make our hearts restless for more of him.  That restlessness speaks to our need for Christ.


It made me wonder if my reaction to him has been too tame lately.  I want my restlessness and agitation to change the world for Jesus, but have I been restless or agitated lately?  Or have I allowed something else to take the place of that restlessness and stirring Jesus brings to my heart?

What about you?  Is Jesus stirring your heart?  Or have you allowed something else his place?


P.S. I'll talk about the other verse later...this is already long :-)

Papa

In August my Papa passed away.  This is something I wrote shortly after.  I hope you enjoy it.


Papa was popcorn...with lots and lots and lots of butter.
Papa was puzzles...jigsaw, wordsearches, crosswords, they didn't cause him to shudder.
Papa was pistachios and nutcrackers,

games and fun.

Papa was.

Papa was stamp collecting...from all over the world.

Papa was scrapbooking...before it was cool.

Papa was late nights at sleepovers and eggs for breakfast.

Papa was

Papa was gardening and flowers...oh, how they bloomed.

Papa was jeopardy and wheel of fortune...he always got the clues.

Papa was zoo trips and picnics,

playdates and field trips.

Papa was.

Papa was quiet and humble...soft spoken he was.

Papa was prayer and faith...an example to all

Papa was serving and loving

joyful and true.

Papa was.

And because of all Papa was

We have become all we are.

Papa's "was" is, in us, Papa's "now".

Change

The house is really quiet right now.  Everyone else is in bed, but I was still up doing homework that's due tomorrow.  Oh, the joys of grad school. (Which, by the way, I was accepted into! I know it's been a while since I posted).  And as I sit here in the quiet, I have some time to think.  A lot has happened over the past few months.  Change has happened.  Some of it's been really good.  Some of it's been really hard.  But change has to happen. Change has just seemed to happen more often lately.  Maybe it's partly because I'm just getting older, but in the last month or two, it's been happening in abundance. In August, I found out I was accepted into grad school.  A week later my Papa was admitted to the hospital.  A short four days later he was with Jesus (I'll admit, as much as I miss him, I'm slightly jealous he's hanging out with Jesus right now).  Right after that chaos, grad school started.  And then yesterday we dropped my baby sister off at college.  Yes, change is happening.

Yet, through all the change there is a constant.  Through all the chaos there is a peace.  God never changes.  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  His love never changes. His holiness never changes.  So when I'm tired of all the changes happening around me, I look up.  I look to Jesus. Because he's not changing.  He's holding me as I might be fighting all the changes, but he stays the same.  In the chaos that is life, it brings incredible peace to know that God never changes.  That he is the one constant I can keep coming back to.

Change is good and necessary and sometimes bittersweet.  But what is better is the constant hope and love found in Jesus...it's unchanging, never-ending, always there.  That's the best.