Raise your hand if you like spicy food!  Mine is not up because I avoid food that has the potential to hurt me.  Flaming hot Cheetos, Doritos and hot cinnamon candy were snack time favorites and the 6th graders were always trying to get me to “try just one” but I stood my ground and took a hard pass. I haven’t been offered a flaming hot snack of any kind in almost a year, but it crossed my mind the other day when I heard the phrase “Spicy Disciples”.  That made me giggle and after some thought, I realized I have a new goal…to be a spicy disciple of Jesus so I can follow him with no fear!  I suppose the opposite of a spicy disciple could be considered a “Soggy Disciple” and that doesn’t seem like it would do much good at all.

The whole idea of being a spicy disciple has made me wonder what kind of follower I really am.  There are all kinds of followers when you think about it.  Think about irritating little siblings or whiney toddlers.  What about needy, moody teenagers who follow behind like they have a rain cloud hanging over their head.  Then I thought about the Eeyore type of folks who just plop along looking at the negative side of everything and don’t seem excited or grateful about anything.  Oh, and then there are the complainers who don’t see the good in anything or the strong natured folks who follow along because they always need something.  And let’s not forget the demanding, bossy, “I have the best idea” kind of followers.  After thinking about all these kinds of followers I wondered what kind of follower Jesus sees me as? 

I wondered if Jesus ever gets annoyed as I followed him constantly asking for stuff or pointing out the things he didn’t do the way I wanted.  I wondered if he sees me like a pesky little sister who gets bossy and sassy.  Most of all I wondered if I appear to be ungrateful and selfish, always wanting to be in charge of the plans for the day.  I suppose none of those things would qualify me as a spicy disciple would they! An honest question I had to ask myself was, “If I was Jesus, would I enjoy having someone like me following me around?  The dictionary definition of spicy contains words like bold, exciting, intense, fragrant and surprising.  

Living out our discipleship in such a way that bold, exciting or intense could describe us would make a true difference in our lives, in our relationship with Jesus and it would have a positive impact on those around us.  A soggy disciple just seems to perpetuate all the things the world has too much of, so now is the time to spice things up!  Thank goodness becoming a spicy disciple doesn’t require Flaming Hot Cheetos or Cayenne Pepper but rather a decision to let the Lord be in charge and to ask him for the boldness to follow him with joy and trust.  I’m going to start being spicy today by saying the words “Jesus I Trust In You” three times before I complain, compare or ask for anything.  Being a spicy disciple won’t make my lips burn but I sure hope it makes my heart burn with a desire to love and serve him more joyfully!

A Seed To Plant:  Pray with the words bold, exciting, intense, fragrant and surprising asking the Father to help you pick one to develop on your way to becoming a spicy disciple.
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Blessings on your day!
 
 

Consider trials JOY? What was St. James thinking when he wrote this?  Upon first glance at this verse we might be tempted to wonder if the beloved Saint put in a few too many prayerful “all-nighters” because surely he wasn’t serious about feeling joyful when the washer breaks, someone you love gets sick, the fuel pump on the car goes out or the sweet teenager in your home eats the last piece of peach pie you were hiding…I mean saving, in the back of the fridge!  Joy…I don’t think so!  And what about the really big stuff like losing your job or serious illness, surely he couldn’t have meant those things could bring joy. I suppose we could sit down and make a list of all the trials that have happened upon us in the past month and we would be overcome with many emotions, none of which would be joy!
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The real meat of this verse is the part that explains what we can get in exchange for our trials…stronger faith and perseverance.  Do you remember when you were young and you went home from school and complained about that boy who pulled your pigtails or the girl who annoyingly pointed out your every move to the teacher?  The standard reply from home went something like this, “Well honey, if they didn’t like you they wouldn’t tease you.”  This verse has a little bit of that flavor to it don’t ya think!  God promised that we would have trouble…it is a guarantee, not a possibility.  Even though we’ve read those words more than once, trials still seem to catch us by surprise.  We sometimes even cop an attitude and think, “What, me…why me Lord? What have I done to deserve this difficulty?”  We might even get really sassy and say, “Oh, pardon me Father, but you’ve made a mistake, I’ve already had 8 serious trials this month, I believe this current dilemma belongs to the neighbor or even better, the guy who cut me off in traffic this morning!”

The simple truth is, if He didn’t love us, He wouldn’t give us trials at all.  Each difficulty or disappointment that knocks on our front door or barges right into our day is an opportunity to grow in trust or compassion or patience.  When we throw up our hands in despair and say, “Ok God, I don’t know how to do this…I don’t think I’m strong enough for this, please guide me and guard me and love me through it!” we will grow in faith and perseverance plus we will be blessed with grace and mercy. I think what St. James was teaching us is that any time we surrender to the holy power of God, that’s joyful, and the blessing is more strength, more grace and more faith for the next thing! It seems strange to thank God for the lousy stuff but that is what we are called to do.  We need to act like we are completely aware that He is about to do a might work through that trial if we would just stand back and let Him take us through it. 

A Seed To Plant: The next time a trial comes your way, stop and thank God for it and ask Him to show you the joy in the situation.  We’d love to hear your stories!

Blessings on your day!

​Growing up I remember pot-luck dinners in the church basement.  Sometimes they were held for special occasions and events and other times they were for no particular reason at all.  I remember everybody laughing and chatting and enjoying each other’s company. This sweet memory popped in my head this week listening to the daily readings from the Acts of the Apostles about the early church sharing meals and prayers together.  Maybe it was because it was a simpler time or maybe it was just cooks from a small rural community but the food that would show up on those long tables was always beyond delicious.  As I was taking this little walk down memory lane, I remembered a time my mom took a dessert that everybody wanted the recipe for.  Everyone made such a big deal out of this dessert. Mom served it from a lovely glass bowl that made it look extra fancy.  When we got home, she just laughed as she washed the bowl because this super delicious, fancy dessert only had four simple ingredients.  A cake mix, a can of fruit cocktail, a stick of butter and a tub of cool whip.  She said it was the easiest thing she’d ever made but it sure looked and tasted like a big fancy thing.
  That dessert was such a hit even though it was so simple.  We tend to underestimate simple but the Gospel story about the healing of the blind man came to mind as I remembered the story of the famous pot-luck dessert. Did you ever stop to think about how in this story Jesus did something absolutely profound with something as simple as clay and spit?  We are the seekers of the fancy and we’ve become so immune to the simple that we often miss it because we’ve got our heads stuck in the “over the top”.  I wonder how much peace we could add to our life if we were to make it our goal to seek the simple.
This entire Gospel is an episode of the blame game.  It’s pretty easy to get our mind stuck in the things we feel we’ve earned, or we’re owed.  When things don’t go according to our plan we want to know why and find the reason things got messed up.  The truth is, God does some of His very best work in the messy, the broken and the disappointing.  When we hold too tightly to our wishes, we miss God’s plan and the dozens of ways He’s ministering to us and to others through us.
At the beginning of this Easter Season, let’s pretend we are the blind man begging Jesus for sight to see with His eyes and to see His plan and to see His beloved in our midst.  I can be so blinded by my own ambitions, expectations and foolish pride. I’d like to be healed of the bad habit of seeing things only through the lens of what’s best for me.  Lord cover my eyes in clay and spit so I will truly be able to see You in all Your magnificent Easter Glory!
 
A Seed To Plant:  Spend some time this week with this simple prayer.  Dear Jesus, help me see with your eyes.  Heal my eyes and make me aware of the simple ways you walk with me, lead me and invite me to draw close and grow holy.  Amen
 
 Blessings on your day!

​Happy Easter!  We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song! Are you still singing three days after Easter Sunday?  I sure hope so because this joyful season lasts 50 days and takes us all the way to Pentecost Sunday…it’s not over: it’s just beginning!  If you’re wondering what that even means, this is the post for you.
This is BIGGER: Perspective is a helpful thing here.  We make a big deal out of lots of things…currently many of us are celebrating college basketball and getting all caught up in the NCAA tournament which lasts for nearly three weeks.  We host celebrations and give gadgets and awards for so many things but honestly how do any of them compare to something like Being Raised from the Dead?  That trumps everything but we can so easily skip past it in one day. For the entire Easter Season, what if you told yourself and your family “Happy It’s Still Easter” and spent a minute thinking about what Jesus did...that’s worth celebrating!
Stay In The Sunday:  God loves us with a love we as humans aren’t even capable of.  He doesn’t count mistakes, shortcomings and take plea bargains for our bad days.  He just loves in spite of it all…we get caught in Good Friday and the pain, suffering, punishment and brutality and sometimes we apply that thinking to our own life thinking we can never be “good enough” to “pay Jesus back” for all he did for us.  That’s true…we can’t!  But He’s not asking us to and he’s not asking us to stay stuck there.  He’s asking us to realize he did it for us…the dying has been done so we can move on to the living and the JOY and EXCITEMENT of Easter Sunday.  He wants us to stay in the Sunday with him, to celebrate, to rejoice, to soak up his extravagant love for 50 full days.
Fancy Stuff:  Easter calls for fancy stuff like baskets, decorations, flowers, new shoes and clothes and of course goodies.  All that is part of the celebration and it’s an event deserving of all of that, but it goes so much deeper.  The shoes and clothes will go out of style, the flowers will wilt, and the goodies will be gobbled up, but the gift of Easter is eternal.  If we spend a little time each day thinking about that, it will leave us changed.
Share it to Keep it:  Easter dinner and goodies can be shared more than just once.  What if we celebrated each of the 7 Sundays of Easter as a “mini-Easter” and took the time to sit down to Sunday dinner and invite friends or family to join you.  What if we shared Easter goodies with a different person each week of the Easter Season in order to keep the good news of Jesus’ gift alive.  What if we read and talked about the “what happened next” events that took place after Easter Sunday in order to keep the Easter joy alive in our hearts.
Our Resurrection and New Life: The 50 days of Easter is the perfect time to focus on the things we would like to “rise up” from.  Maybe we would be closer to Jesus if we rose above gossip or pride.  Maybe we would enjoy new life in our relationship with Christ if we spent a few minutes in quiet peace thanking the Lord.  Maybe our families would experience New Life if we spent more time together doing simple things like pizza picnics in a fort or playing games and going for a walk.  How can we rise up from the noise and chaos of our days…Easter is an invitation to ask the Father to help you do exactly that.
A Seed To Plant:  How will you celebrate Easter for 50 days…give it some prayer and some thought…you won’t be sad you did it!
Blessings on your day!