follow the neon

We happily agreed to loan our ski pants to a friend -a quiet, reserved friend.  He didn’t know the pants were neon green.  I wish you could have seen his face when I pulled those out of the front closet.   

I later laughingly asked his wife what she thought of the pants, and she said, “Thank God for those pants!!”  They skied down the mountain into a dense fog, and the only thing she could make out in front of her was neon green.  Scared to death, she followed that spot of color all the way down the run. 

I feel like I’m serving God in a dense fog sometimes.  Trying to push forward energetically and valiantly –but where is forward? 

In this season of my life when I am walking into unknown territory, God’s words are to me like neon ski pants in a fog. 

Not just any words –not the whole Bible.  I am talking about specific verses that God has pulled out and handed to me and said, “Here, this is your job.  This is what I want you to do with your life.” 

So when activities of the day feel weird, which they do a lot –like writing a blog –and I wonder if I’m going in the direction God wants me to go, I fix my eyes on those neon verses and don’t let them out of my site. 

Do you have one?  Some instruction in the Bible that you know is your verse.   

The one to live your life by. 

The one to measure every activity of the day by. 

The one to throw every ounce of energy into obeying.   

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."  (Psalm 119:105) 

either one or the other

I used to sneakily follow Hispanic people around Wal-Mart in Texas, trying to understand what they were saying, because I was working on a minor in Spanish at college.  I was so excited on the day I realized I was actually eavesdropping because I understood!  (Conscience stricken, I stopped that practice immediately and turned to watching Spanish soaps instead.)

I can say the basics in Spanish, but it annoys my son.  He looked up how to say a phrase.  No matter what I say to him in Spanish now, he replies “Mi umbrigo esta en fuego”, which I believe means his bellybutton is on fire.

Besides being able to say simple things, like “Do you want milk?” or “Where is the bathroom?” I remember the strangest phrases in Spanish, like “Que quervas, y yo sin frenos!”, which means “What curves, and me without breaks!”  (I’m certainly not going to teach my 14-year-old son how to say it!)

But one Spanish phrase is my favorite.  "En que puedo servirle?"  It means, “How can I serve you?”  It rolls off the tongue.

Over lunch today I read what Philip Yancey wrote about Dr. Paul Brand’s servant lifestyle, “The pattern I observed in Dr. Brand and his family reinforces a trend I have noted among various Christians I have interviewed for magazines.  Not everyone fits the pattern, surely.  But I have encountered it often enough that I can almost lump these interview subjects into two sets:  Christian entertainers and Christian servants.  The Christian entertainers…we fawn over them, reward them with extravagant contracts and fan mail.  They have everything they want, usually, including luxurious lifestyles.”  (Ten Fingers for God, by Dorothy Clarke Wilson)

I sat for a long time at the kitchen table after I read Yancey's observation.  Which one am I?  Entertainer or servant?  An aspiring writer, I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months educating myself on how to build a readership online, how to write a book proposal, how to create a website... But after reading about Dr. Brand, I am forced to define what it is I'm trying to accomplish by writing.  Do I seek to entertain or to serve people with my words? 

Jesus says, "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant." (Matthew 20:26) 

I choose servant.  Even as I say it out loud to myself I realize that perspective changes how I go about everything.

So I ask you, in all sincerity, En que puedo servirle? Would you leave a comment and tell me –in what areas of life do you most need a strengthening word? 

my midlife crisis

closet

dresser

bathroom

These are the words on signs in her room at the nursing home, because she forgets these things.

I stare at the sign that says “bathroom”, and I wonder how long my time of thinking clearly and remembering will last. 

I plug in the electric piano that I’ve wheeled into her room and begin to play songs written many decades ago.  Ain’t She Sweet.  Tea for Two.  Charleston. 

Memory Lane. 

“What a beautiful sound your piano has” she says.

“Thank you.  I think it’s pretty, too.”

“Did you have to push the piano up the stairs?” she says.

“No, just down the hall here at the nursing home.”

“What a beautiful sound your piano has” she says.

“Yes, I think it has a beautiful sound, too.”

“Was it hard to push the piano up the stairs?” she says.

For 30 minutes we have this same conversation over and over and over while I play for her.

Ephesians 5:16 says, “…making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” 

As I leave the nursing home, I feel a sense of urgency to work hard and do everything God wants me to do right now, because I don’t know when this rich time of being well and mentally alive will last.  Until the day before I need a sign that says “bathroom” and a sign that says “closet” and a sign that says “dresser”, I hope I hope to make the most of time, to love God with all of my mind and all of my strength and to love people.