One of my favorite verses in Scripture is this-
Faith is the Substance- Amanda Elder Silvers
31 Friday Aug 2012
Posted Amanda Silvers, Faith, God, hope, promise
in31 Friday Aug 2012
Posted Amanda Silvers, Faith, God, hope, promise
inOne of my favorite verses in Scripture is this-
10 Tuesday Jul 2012
Posted Atonement, Belief, Bible, eternal life, Faith, Kerry Luddy, love
inWhat I know
Photo by Maggie Luddy, 2011.
31 Saturday Mar 2012
Posted Art, Bonhoeffer, Faith, Favorite Books, Kerry Luddy, theology
inI sometimes feel like a dunce when I am asked to list my favorite foods, shops, authors, or in this case, books. My brain stutters and I have a tough time answering. I think it is because I don’t want to be held to any proclamation–my favorite dinner today could be my least favorite next week. And having a favorite implies that you are categorizing all the others as “second-best” (like when one of your children insists you have a favorite child and wants you to name him or her out loud).
I will put aside this neurosis for today and name my current choices for books that have informed, challenged and inspired me.
Hands down, Eric Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is one of the best books I have read. Don’t be put off by its length–it will hold you in its grip until you finish. When I began the book, I knew only a little about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a bit of his writing, some misinformation from other theologians, and from a great 2000 film, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace). Too often we can easily dismiss people because they do something we see as wrong, or hypocritical, or even stupid, instead of looking at the whole picture of that person’s life (I once heard someone say that the sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin was a “jerk”).
Bonhoeffer was a complex human being who loved God fully, openly, and sacrificially. He became a pastor and theologian against his family’s wishes. He is described as lovable and difficult. As a 37 year-old, he falls in love with a 17 year-old. He and his family knew the dangers of Hitler long before the rest of world and he tried tirelessly to inform the outside world. He believed that a true Christian must love God and seek justice, and was horrified by German churches’ passivity regarding Nazism. Bonhoeffer, after living in safety in London for two years, returned to Germany to conduct a seminary in secret, and was constantly harassed by the Nazis. Through his well-placed family, he became a spy within Abwehr, a German intelligence agency that was actually the center of the resistance) and was later executed by the Nazis in 1945.
Metaxas does a masterful job of handling a very complex, compelling story, managing to weave Bonhoeffer’s developing theology, deep love for God, and his own humanity throughout a text that informs about Hitler’s rise. This book convicted and challenged me about my own faith and the need for ever-growing obedience to our call as Christians, which must include compassion, mercy and sacrifice for others.
Two other books that are well worth the read are Lauren Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, which will enlarge the reader’s understanding of the other war in WW II, the war in the Pacific, as the author unfolds the true story of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini (another complex individual with amazing resilience–and whose later life is just as difficult and then transformed!); and, because I love art and story, David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, my favorite book (and a gift from my sister Ann for my birthday last June!) of 2011.
This is a fabulous, excellent, get-the-artsy-juices-flowing book: you will learn more about French history in the 1800’s, side by side with American history, (rather than how we learned in school–in isolation from other countries); you will want to run, not walk, to every piece of art and sculpture you have seen by Sargent, Cassatt, Healy, Catlin, Saint-Gaudens, because you have learned the back-story of many creations; and you will wish you were at the Exposition in Paris in 1889 when Thomas Edison was the rage, the Eiffel Tower was new, and 6,000 pieces of art were on display, and something new called a toy car by Peugeot was displayed.
03 Saturday Mar 2012
Posted death, eulogy, Faith, God, Kerry Luddy
inI have to admit I have imagined being at my own funeral. I know, I know: technically, you are at your own funeral. However, since I believe that death will bring me face to face with my Savior, I doubt I will also be present in spirit where loved ones may have gathered to remember me. Unlike Tom Sawyer and Huck, I won’t be shocking family and friends by walking into my own funeral.
A eulogy is different from an obituary. An obit is factual and in printed or electronic form; a eulogy is delivered in person at a funeral or memorial service, usually with praise about the deceased, with some creative flair. Since I am uncomfortable at praising myself for 20 minutes (is that how long a eulogy should be?), I will proceed with praising others who have made my life worth eulogizing.
If I cannot be at my own funeral in spirit, at least I can be there in film. In a culture where people record the most inane of events on YouTube, pre-taping the great goodbye is not too far-fetched:
“I love you. I love that you came to say goodbye to me. I love you for being among many of the people I have loved and laughed with. I especially love you, Tim, and you, Sam, Maggie and Emma. Besides my Savior Jesus, you are the center of my life. You were amazing children to raise–I am including you, Tim! ;)–you have each made me proud. Each day with you was a gift, and even now I am chuckling about all of our private jokes and laughter over movies, Dad’s quirky songs, Apples to Apples, and all of life’s craziness. Keep laughing and be kind to one another. Those are God’s medicine for a world prone to sadness. Tim, you really are the kindest and best of men–yes, that is a Jane Austen quote. I cannot leave this life without at least one or two.
To my sisters, thank you for being such good friends along my journey, even when we could not stand one another way back when. Thank you, Ann, for sharing your love of good food and wine and museums. Thank you, Lois, for being so darn cheeky and fun. And by the way, neither of you can steal my I.D. to enter the pearly gates. For my brother Des, I forgive you for giving me a bloody nose a couple of times when we were little. I probably deserved it.
Kate, my dear mother, all that tea you made me probably killed me. Just kidding. I really don’t know what caused my death, but I know it wasn’t you. I think. Just kidding, again, Mom! I love you, and love to tease you. You mean the world to me, as does the rest of our extended family. I am so thankful that God placed me in the midst of a large, fun Irish family–I won’t ever forget the many Curran kindnesses shown to my family and me.
Hello, friends! Chris, you were my inspiration for hospitality and intercessory prayer. Rhonda, you are my soul sister. Debbie, you taught me much about worship music. Judy, Joan, Robin, Mo and Shell: graciousness personified. Sharon, you taught me to laugh at myself and exemplify servanthood. Sandy, thank you for taking the time to mentor a young believer. I can’t mention each one of you; I wish I could. But we would be here all day, and this is really supposed to be about me, not you.
To my in-laws, thank you for your love and for the amazing son you raised. I can never repay you for your love and generosity to our children, your grandchildren.
Gordon-Conwell people, you are so dear to me and in my thoughts and prayers. At least I think you are. I could be really busy talking to Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Martin Luther and C.S. Lewis, and my grandmothers right now. And then my father and I have an appointment to read the Wall Street Journal cover to cover after praising God for a millennium or two.
But lastly–and yes, Tim, I will have the last word–I really hope and pray that each of you–especially my children–will remember something I told you or showed you about God. I hope I did. If not, what a waste. Not that time spent with you was a waste, but I wasted precious time if I did not love you more and myself less. If I had, I would have made sure you knew that Jesus saved me from death and from myself, and how much I want you to know His love and saving grace.
Some of you have told me my laughter is infectious. Or annoying. You know who you are. Well, so is God’s love. Infectious, I mean–not annoying! I pray I shared both love and laughter.”
11 Saturday Feb 2012
Posted Church, Faith, Kerry Luddy, Testimony
inI am so grateful for the Church. I don’t join the chorus of those who claim the Church is dead: as long as believers are living and breathing, and as long as God is present among them, the Church is alive, and it matters. It has mattered in my life. As one of three daughters born to an Irish Catholic mother and an American Protestant father in New England, I had a unique footing in the church world. Guess what? I found Jesus through the influence of both Catholics and Protestants among the “frozen chosen” in mainline churches.
01 Tuesday Mar 2011
Considering the frustration I shared last week, it’s a little hard to answer where I think God is leading me. Of late I think that God likes to lead me by keeping me in the desert or the wilderness. I am sure I probably exaggerate my plight a bit but that is how it feels to me. I wonder sometimes, how much more does He have to change in me?
Beware, Joyce is going to get real again. Last year I took the Strength Finders test. My number one strength was “ideation.” I wouldn’t have guessed that was my strength but when I thought about it more, I thought yep, that’s me. Throughout my life, I’ve had lots of good ideas. I mean really great ideas, even money making ideas. Many years ago when I lived in Hallsville MO they had no daycare. I wanted to rent the other side of the duplex we lived in and start a daycare. My husband yawned, my mother scoffed. I persisted but as with many things, alone I eventually gave up. Three months later a woman opened one down the street. She did well. On top of that my mother praised her since she knew her from church. I kept thinking, that could have been me.
Joyce’s Chai Blend |
That story is the story of my life. Trust me, I have plenty of examples. Usually I am left to bang my head against a wall and wonder why. I’ve thought at times that maybe it was that I needed to trust my own instincts and/or leadings and just do it. Well, I did. I started a coffee shop that morphed into a deli and tried all sorts of marketing tactics. I had amazing and inexpensive menu items. Imagine, fresh cooked eggs to order, fresh made breakfast potatoes with onions and multi-colored peppers, meat of choice, bread of choice – and if you ordered a biscuit, you got homemade sausage gravy with it as well. Served fast and fresh for the low price of $3.99. Add to that a $ .50 cup of bottomless fresh coffee and you had a great meal for under $5. Or you could add a Milky Way latte, an Almond Joy cappuccino, a fruit smoothie with real fruit in it or a steamy creamy chai latte made with my own chai mix that had fresh spices I ground myself for $3.99. And the weekend omelets were to die for – eventually we lost more money than I care to think about. Not to mention the blow to the ego. It was location but nevertheless, another idea gone bad.
Then there was the church. God told me to start a church. I did. Twice. The spirit of the Lord showed up big time one morning. The worship leader had a vision. He saw us all in the start gate of a race. He said that I was on a horse. I had been waiting a very long time. I was dying to get out of the gate. He said that gate was opening. Yippie Skippy Glory Hallelujah – within two months I found out I was going to South Dakota. Not exactly the gate opening I had in mind. Not exactly a place I flourished. But oh the things I learned in the process.
Okay, I don’t want this to be a downer. I suppose this has sort of been Joyce’s morning lament. I don’t want this to be so real that you think I have no faith. I do have faith. I do have hope. I have so much hope and faith that at an age when most people are planning or experiencing retirement, I’m working on a doctoral degree. The high school drop out welfare mom who no one thought was worth anything, is now a doctoral student. I’m plugging away with a research study on the use of computer mediated social networking (Facebook) for the purpose of Christian community. That’s what God has led me to do. That’s what I’m doing. I hope it doesn’t end up like all my other good ideas. I hope it benefits the Kingdom. But one thing I’ve learned, results do not mean success or failure. Success is all about obedience and the process of becoming like Jesus.
18 Wednesday Aug 2010
I had the thought of holding onto a $100 bill on a windy day. How tight I would clutch, maybe even peeking into my fist, ‘checking’ to see if it was still there. I thought about what would happen if a gust of wind ripped it outta my hands and sent it flying across the parking lot. I saw myself running after it, following its every twist and turn in the air. I imagined other people staring at me in curiosity or outta fear depending upon my facial expressions, actions and cries of “God stop that money!” or yelling at complete strangers “HEY! Help me out here, please!?!” I wondered what would happen if it blew underneath a car, if I would drop to the ground and crawl on my belly over oil stains and discarded gum, stabbing at it with an outstretched hand. I wondered if I would run into traffic and halt cars as I stomped at the ground trying to pin Ben Franklin to the pavement.
I wondered what if someone else would have gotten to it first. An rough looking dude, an elderly lady or a small child? How would I respond if they tried to keep my money? Would I be rude, would I just grab what belonged to me irregardless of the consequences. In a way, I thought, it would be easier for me to confront the scary looking dude because if things got ugly, it wouldn’t be bad if I brawled with him, even if I lost a couple of teeth. Whereas, if I picked a fight with the little old lady, it would be a lose/lose situation for me, let alone if she put me down and out how I would have to explain to my wife how I lost $100 and got beat down by a grandma.
All of this went through my mind as I walked from my car into the grocery store. (No wonder I forgot to get the diapers I was originally sent to the store to get, huh?) What had me thinking about this is how I could without hesitation or regard, fight and track down something of value that belonged to me. How it is possible for me to work so hard for something that is not permanent and that is fleeting, but I don’t chase after Peace with the same frenzied passion.
As a believer, His Peace is promised to me! As a believer His Peace is mine to take a hold of and hang onto when times are rough and out of my control. But so many times I throw away His Peace because of my fears, my words or because of my laziness. I don’t chase after a Peace that would be so much more helpful to me and especially those around me. I give up on pursuing it after a couple of half hearted attempts of seeking Him. I don’t ask for any one’s help in seeking what is mine to have. I don’t make a ‘public spectacle’ of myself trying to claim what is mine.
Now check out the definition of peace: Shalom {shaw-lome’}; safe, i.e. (figuratively) well, happy, friendly; also (abstractly) welfare, i.e. health, prosperity, peace: favour, (good) health, peace prosperous, rest,
Peace is definitely worth pursuing. It would definitely be worth me making a public spectacle of myself or calling upon others to help me when it is out of my reach. Peace is actually worth more to me than the things in life I am lacking. Money, relationships and circumstances have no guarantees. Hey, the world promises us nothing but trouble. Great friends, fat bank accounts and an easy life is not promised. But as believers, Peace is ours to have when we don’t have enough money, ideal relationships and pleasant circumstances.
I can hunt and fight the things which are temporary and that can actually be a great source of my headaches or I can fight for that which will be with me when I have it all or have nothing at all.
14 Wednesday Jul 2010
Posted Dave, Faith, Nikki, Sex, Supertastics
inOn August 24, 2007, Nikki and I got on our knees before God and each other and dedicated our love for Him and each other. We didn’t take it lightly, and we had refrained from sex while dating because we both had been a part of relationships that had started out with sex or were based upon sex. And those were all failures. We knowingly and willingly allowed sin into a relationship. Or we had begun a relationship with sex and selfishness and instant gratification and shallowness and stupidity and……
On September 21, 2007, Nikki and I stood before a Justice of Peace so our marriage would be recognized by the state of Iowa and my employer. Nikki took Logan as her son and I took Naomi as my daughter. A mere formality, but it was still cool to include both kids. It was definitely a Jesus thing, because both Naomi and Logan were supposed to be with their bio parents that weekend. Nikki and I had known we were gonna get married. When her employer dropped Nikki’s health insurance coverage, we pushed the date up and dropped the notion of an all out wedding.
What is kinda ironic is if I woulda had a gay lover named Nick, I coulda added him to my health insurance coverage no problem. But since I was dating a woman, a very wonderful woman, I could not put her on my coverage. In the eyes of Jesus, Nikki and I were already married. Its just that the state of Iowa and my employer didn’t recognize us as husband and wife. And most importantly, Nikki and I recognized the importance of honoring Jesus in our relationship and asking Him to be a part of our lives before we became one.
08 Thursday Jul 2010
How many times have you heard someone tell you that they think that at the end of their life they will have some kind of experience where God will stand at the entrance of heaven with a great big scale and put all their life actions on either the good or bad side of the scale and the side to which the scale tips determines their eternal destiny? I know I’ve heard various renditions of this thought more times than I can count.
I’m so grateful for what I see when I read Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV):
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
When I read this I realize that God has done everything for me. He saved me, brought me into relationship with Himself, just because He chose to love me. He gave me the faith to believe in Him.
I’ve found in my life that the more I come to understand and believe this truth, in the deepest parts of my heart, the more I want to get closer to God. The more I long for the His Word, delight in praising and thanking Him, desire to linger in His presence. The more I stay connected to Him, the more I open up avenues for His Spirit to work in my life. The more He works in my life, the more I become others focused, not in the sense of judging them, but in the sense of wanting to let God use me in their lives to bless them.
I find it interesting that in verse 9 of the Bible passage above it says that God did all that He did because He has a purpose for the lives of each of His followers, a purpose for us to do good. In Galatians 5 it talks about the freedom we can experience in Christ and how our natural, sinful, nature is at odds with the work of God’s spirit in us. In Galatians 5:22-23 it even describes what the product, or fruit, of God’s spirit working in us will look like:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
We absolutely don’t come into relationship with God because of any good actions on our part. We can spend eternity with God simply because of His gift of faith in His son who died on our behalf. Yet, as I come into relationship with God He does change me. he does produce these 9 things described above. As Joyce pointed out earlier this week, the process by which God works is not always one that we would naturally think of as pleasurable. Just as pruning rose bushes allows them to produce more roses, so God’s pruning in my life allows me to produce more fruit.
What are some ways God’s worked in your life to make you fruitful?
07 Wednesday Jul 2010
“Satan can duplicate the Gifts of Holy Spirit but he cannot duplicate the Fruit of Holy Spirit.”-Craig Bex
Mark 13.22
It seems to me that there are more people in the church today that are trying to ‘prove’ false christs than trying to prove the Love of Christ. That people are trying to root out the tares (Matthew 13.36-43) instead of taking care of the wheat. I gotta admit that there have been times in the past where I thought it was my ‘mission’ to set straight theologies that I didn’t agree with. Sometimes, I was subtle, taking the Rabbi approach of answering a question with a question. Other times, I was as subtle as a punch in the throat. Because of my arrogance and lack of Love, in most instances the only person ‘convinced’ was myself.
The true value of my works aint gonna be revealed until the Day when they are thrown into the fire. (1 Corinthians 3.12-13) It is then that my real motivation will be seen, by everyone. I am convinced that there will be works that I have ‘successfully’ completed that will burn as straw because I know that my motivation wasn’t outta love. I am also convinced that I will see some of my ‘failures’ reveal silver or gold because I was obedient and served Jesus outta Love, even though things didn’t turn out the way I thought they should have.
As I step out into what Jesus is leading next in my life, it is so important to have my ‘ministry’, my focus, where it needs to be. Ministry aint about blog entries, the Gifts, results or me. Ministry is about me cultivating and giving away the Fruit of the Spirit. Ministry for me is being the best farmer I can be.