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One Person – Many Names
My husband’s name is James. When we’re out together with friends, I call him James. When the two of us are alone in the house, I call him James, as in, “James, could you take out the garbage?”
However, the way I address my husband changes when my daughter comes over. To my daughter, James is Dad, so when I refer to him in her presence, I call him Dad, as in, “Will you see if Dad is ready to take out the garbage?”
The grandkids call my husband Papaw, so, whenever they’re around, I identify him as Papaw, as in, “Tell Papaw the garbage is ready to be taken out.”
If we’re all in the same room together, carrying on various threads of conversation, I’ll sometimes have to run through several names before settling on the appropriate one. It becomes even more confusing when my own father is present, because he has his own set of names, Dad, G-paw and Papaw.
Although not quite the same, something similar occurs on a spiritual level. God can be addressed as Father, Jesus, or Holy Spirit.
Jesus, who is our model for having an intimate conversation with God, used “Father” in every recorded prayer, except for one. Father is the name most believers use today when speaking directly to God. When we call God our Father, we are acknowledging a special relationship with the one who gives us life, who provides our needs, and who loves us as His children.
I am incredibly blessed and privileged to call the God of the Universe my Father.
Even though the Father is the Head of the Trinity and the one we most often call upon when we pray, we are also encouraged to address our petitions to Jesus. Jesus Himself said, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” John 14:12. Our petitions can be directed toward Jesus as well as to our Father, and we see both Paul and John praying in this way. (2 Corinthians 12:8; Revelation 22:20).
Because our access to the Father and to Jesus comes through the Spirit, there is a sense in which every time we pray to any member of the Godhead, we are calling on the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:18; Romans 8:26).
Like my earthly relationship with my husband, I often address God according to my circumstances. Most of the time, I cry out to Him as my Father. However, situations arise when I can only relate to Him as Jesus—my Savior, my Lord, my Shepherd. When I desire to be filled with His presence, I call out to His Spirit to fill me.
Regardless of how I choose to address my husband, it doesn’t change my relationship with him. The same is true with God. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12. No matter how we address God, as born-again believers, we are always and forever His children.
How Do You Watch A Movie?
When I watch a movie, I’m intrigued by how the story unfolds, how the writer has pulled the threads of the plot together to get to a satisfactory—and sometimes unsatisfactory—ending. Of lesser importance to me are the specifics surrounding the actors’ ability to nuance the characters in the movie. Perhaps of least importance to me is the technique behind the camera shots or the way in which the director chooses to film the action in the movie.
However, my husband is not that interested in the “story” of the movie. Instead, he pays more attention to how realistically an actor portrays his character, and whether he or she is good at the craft of acting. He can also get excited about how a movie is filmed, noting things like the director’s love of close-ups or tall buildings.
I believe these two different methods of watching a movie reflect how we relate to other people. For example, take what happens when my husband and I meet a new couple. I immediately start asking questions about their background, their family, their “story.” On the other hand, he is much more interested in asking questions that reveal the couple’s emotions, feelings, and opinions.
Not surprisingly, our personality differences affect how we worship God, how comfortable we are with a certain style of worship, and how we enter into a worship service or respond to the pastor’s sermon. I believe Jesus seeks to encompass all kinds of worshipers with his words from John 4:24: “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
How does your spirit worship God?
What’s Your Story?
All of us have a story. It may be your parenting story, your pregnancy story, your career story or the story of your life. For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed hearing someone’s salvation story–the details surrounding how a person came to faith in Christ.
When we lived in Indiana back in the late 1980’s, the editor of our denomination’s weekly state paper, The Indiana Baptist, asked me to do a weekly column on a different individual each week, emphasizing the details of their conversion experience. I decided to call the column “A Story To Tell.”
My husband’s job at that time was in Baptist missions, and we travelled to a different church in Indiana every week. Since we usually arrived at the church at least an hour before he was to preach, I had time to seek out a friendly man or woman, get their permission to record our conversation, and then ask them to tell me their salvation experience. After the interview, I would write down our conversation in a story format.
While all the stories culminated in the person becoming a born-again Christian, each convert’s circumstances were unique. However, after several months of writing salvation stories, I sensed a common thread in each experience. It was the way God used a friend, a neighbor, a relative or even a stranger to draw the unsaved person to Christ.
An example of this was a young man who had not been brought up in the church, knew nothing of the Lord and was planning on becoming a professional golfer. One evening, when he was about to enter a nightclub to enjoy several hours of partying, he noticed a group of people carrying picket signs. They were protesting what was going on inside the establishment. One of the signs read “The wages of sin is death.”
For weeks the young man was haunted by these words, but he had no idea what they meant. However, after he followed his girlfriend’s suggestion to talk to a pastor, he was led to the Lord, and his life was forever transformed. I’m sure the man who picketed the nightclub that night, carrying a sign with the words from Romans 6:23 written on it, never realized his small gesture eventually made an eternal difference in someone’s life.
I’ve been asked to write these kinds of salvation stories once again. This time I’m writing them for Baptist Press, a daily news wire service. You can visit their website here. The most recent story I wrote demonstrates the importance of inviting someone to church. You can read it here: The K. J. Williams story.
What’s your story?
If you came to faith in Christ within the last three years, or you know of someone who did, please contact me. I’d love to hear the details and share your story with others. You never know how God might use your story to open the heart of an unbeliever to faith in Christ. Your story could become a part of someone else’s story.
What Is Beauty?
After receiving several inquiries about why I haven’t blogged in several months, I decided it was time for me to get back online. For the past six months, I’ve been working on another writing project—more about that in a later post. Taking a break from something we routinely do is a good way to get a new perspective. A friend of mine took a vacation from Facebook. She decided it was a waste of time, and it was keeping her from spending time with her family. Now, she occasionally checks it out, but being off for several weeks helped her to reorder her priorities. She says she sees Facebook differently now.
Seeing things differently is what Steve DeWitt’s book, Eyes Wide Open, is all about. After reading it this summer, I have a different perspective on beauty. This is a book about the beauty of God, but also about why God created beauty in the first place.
DeWitt says the beauty we experience on this earth—in whatever form it takes—is a whisper, a shadow, of the real Beauty. However, so often, we end up worshipping the shadows instead of the real Beauty.
Here’s a quote from DeWitt’s book: “Beauty is both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the source of the beauty with praise and thanksgiving.”
The following video was both a gift and a map to me.
Dental Work and The Psalms
I recently had to have some dental work done, and that brought me to the Psalms. A strange statement, maybe, but I get anxious when there’s drilling and grinding and cutting taking place in the neighborhood of my brain. Reading a Psalm helps me with that anxiety. Something similar occurred when we were missionaries in Venezuela, and I needed to have a wisdom tooth extracted. The small town where we lived didn’t have a dentist that could do the job, so we traveled to the capital city of Caracas for the “procedure.” We had to wait several weeks for the appointment, so that gave me lots of time to be anxious.
The Psalms were a great comfort to me while I waited. I wrote out several of them on a notecard and spent time meditating on them during the day. Psalm 121:8, “The Lord will watch over your coming and going,” and Psalm 142:3, “When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way.” These and several other verses calmed my spirit, and I was able to endure the pain and discomfort.
During my recent dental work, I was reminded of that wisdom tooth extraction and I realized that was the time when I began studying the Psalms in earnest. Now, I make reading a Psalm every day a regular part of my morning devotional time. I love the term David Murray uses to describe the Psalms in his blog, Therapeutic Praise.
Here are two points to remember when reading, memorizing and meditating on the Psalms:
1. They are extremely instructive about God. While I’m thankful I have access to the complete Bible and revelation of God, nevertheless, if I could only have the book of Psalms, I believe I would be able to know God intimately. Each Psalm paints colorful pictures of His mercy, His grace, His love, His wrath, His judgment, His saving power and His desire to comfort His children.
2. They are meant to stir our emotions. These words were written as poetry, as songs. They elicit reactions from deep within our very beings. The writers speak of weeping, of hurting, of joy, of anguish, of shame, of loneliness. Every human emotion is described in the pages of this book, and God is either at the focus of these deep-seated feelings or lingering in the shadows. The Psalms teach me that our emotions are of great concern to Him.
So, “open wide” and take in some nourishment from the Psalms today.
Do You Have A Plan?
It’s that time of year, the transitional week between putting away the Christmas decorations and bringing out next year’s calendar, between eating the last of the Christmas cookies and considering a good diet to begin New Year’s Day. But the main thing I do during this week is to finalize my decision as to what plan I’ll use to read the Bible next year. Every year I try to read through the Bible using a different plan. Occasionally, I’ll skip a year of reading the whole Bible and just do either the Old Testament or the New, and I’ve even opted to just do one whole book for the whole year, like the Gospel of John, reading it several times and reading someone’s commentary on it.
This year our church is reading through the Bible together as a church body, using a comprehensive plan in which the pastor will also preach each Sunday’s sermon on the material the congregation has just finished reading the week before. This plan is called “Read The Bible For Life.” You can read more about the plan and access the readings here.
I’ve also decided to do my reading on my iPad using the ESV Study Bible app. Instead of making notes in the margins of my Bible (which is plenty full of notes already), I’ll be using the note feature of the app and typing in my notes. I also plan to take my iPad to church with me and make notes in the Bible app as the pastor preaches. (I just hope no one thinks I’m playing my Words With Friends during the sermon!)
There’s a very good reason to feed on God’s Word every day: Jesus said to do so. He explained that daily physical eating was not enough and admonished us not to live that way, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) Paul in Colossians 3:16 said that God’s Word should build a home within our hearts and teach us wisdom. I don’t believe this happens by hearing a once-a-week sermon. I believe a daily intake of Scripture is the only means of discovering the beautiful jewels hidden in the bountiful treasure of God’s revelation of Himself.
Do you have a plan? Here’s a comprehensive link for discovering some great Reading Plans For The Bible.
Are You Enjoying Christmas?
I’m not a messy person. Having things in disarray and seeing things disorganized and untidy makes me uncomfortable and uneasy. So for my own peace of mind and happiness, I live with things organized and in order. Okay, some people say I’m an obsessive compulsive person. I plead guilty most of the time. But not when it comes to making Christmas cookies with my grandkids.
After getting flour out of my hair, sweeping away the sugary sprinkles from the table and scrubbing icing off the kitchen floor, I reflected on what seems so right about the “messiness” of this activity. I realized it was the joy of the end result—-seeing everyone savoring their favorite Christmas cookie, whether it was Pappaw’s blue snowman with white eyes or Jake’s sprinkle-laden gingerbread man with the missing arm. I don’t mind this experience because when it all comes to an end, there is a glorious conclusion,.
Christmas can seem a “messy” time of year. As we experience the never-ending hawking of merchandise, the stress of planning, buying and finding gifts for family and friends, and the exhaustion of shopping, traveling and decorating, we may feel uneasy and disoriented. Yet surely during that first Christmas, as Mary and Joseph awaited the birth of their little boy, their lives must have been in total disarray. They were exhausted after an arduous journey, stranded in some dingy stable, sharing the hay with cows and sheep, while Mary labored in the uncertainty and pain of childbirth.
But did they enjoy that first Christmas? There can be little doubt it proved to be the most enjoyable moment of their lives. God had come to earth as Mary and Joseph’s little boy. The messiness of that stable didn’t matter. The glorious conclusion was The Joy Of Heaven come to earth.
That’s what makes the “messiness” of Christmas worthwhile. It is Immanuel, “God with us.” Enjoy Christmas. God is with you and in you and for you.
Funny How Things Turned Out
My two sisters and their families spent almost a week here with us in Norman as we celebrated the Thanksgiving holidays with each other and my dad. It was our first Thanksgiving without my mother since she went home to be with our Lord last March. When we were all together during previous Thanksgivings, Mother was always in charge of the Big Meal. Even though she was confined to a wheelchair the last few years of her life, she still managed to plan the meal, issue instructions and direct the action in the kitchen. As we did the grocery shopping for her a few days before the feasting, my sisters and I would often talk about the various dishes Mom was planning and comment about how we had to do it “this way” because Mom was in charge, implying that if she wasn’t, we would have some different dishes on the table.
This year, we had our chance to do it differently. But, as we cleaned up after the Big Meal, I pointed out to one of my sisters, “It’s funny how things turned out. We did everything the way Mom always did it. We had every dish she always insisted needed to be included in our Thanksgiving meal.” Even though we always thought it might be fun to change things around, experiment just a little with the menu, we kept to her plan. As I reflected on this afterwards, I realized her menu plan had served a very gracious purpose, allowing everyone in the family to have at least one favorite food on the table.
Our Heavenly Father works the same way. He plans my life with one goal in mind: to show me His grace, “that my joy may be in you” (John 17:11). It’s funny how things turn out. Doing things my way won’t bring me ultimate joy, but living my life according to His plans will reveal to me His incredible grace and bring me His ultimate joy.
Keep Asking That Question!
James received a phone call about three weeks ago and the voice on the other end of the line said, “This is a voice from your past.” But unlike some old classmates or relatives that might make a guessing game out of “who do you think this is?” this man quickly explained that he, Tom, and his wife, Debra, had lived down the street from us when we lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But because they had moved to Colorado before we left Santa Fe and moved to Norman, it had been at least twenty years since we had last spoken to them. Tom had actually located us through the internet.
Tom was calling to make an unusual request of James, but before he did so, he explained the journey he had been on which had brought him to this phone call. When we moved to Santa Fe twenty-three years ago, Tom’s wife Debra was a member of First Baptist Church of Santa Fe, where James had just become the senior pastor. She had welcomed us to the neighborhood one day by bringing us some cookies, and not long after that initial encounter, James and I walked down to her house to meet her husband Tom and their two beautiful young daughters.
Tom was standing on the front porch, and we introduced ourselves. As I went on into the house, James remained outside to visit with Tom. Tom said, as he told the story to James over the phone, “You turned to me and asked me if I was a believer in Christ. I remember replying, ‘Of course I am.’”
While Tom was not a member of our church, he did attend the worship services with his family, and he explained how the nagging question, “Are you a believer in Christ?” along with being under the preaching of God’s Word every Sunday, caused him to “devour everything I could find on the Bible and its teachings.” After studying for several years, Tom confessed, “I realized that believing in Christ was not enough. I needed a personal relationship.”
Since Tom and his family moved from Santa Fe, we never knew of his conversion to Christ. He said he went on to become a member of a church and began to teach a Bible study class. He had such a heart for God’s Word that he eventually earned a Master of Arts in Religion and later one in Religious Education from Liberty University.
However, (and this is where he made his request of James) he had never been baptized in believer’s baptism. He was calling to ask if he and Debra came to Norman, would James be able to baptize him? He felt the question James asked him on his front porch that day was his first step on this long journey of faith, and this portion of the journey would be complete if James was the one who baptized him. Of course, James assured him he would be happy to make the arrangements, and we would look forward to renewing our acquaintance.
While so many lessons could be drawn from this encounter, I have felt a renewed burden to ask the question to friend and stranger alike, “Are you a believer in Christ?” Ask the question, the Lord will do the rest.
Do You Know The Way To Colorado?
James and I have just returned from a vacation in Colorado. I’m sure I’ll be posting several stories in the next few days about the incredible beauty we encountered and the interesting people we met along the way, but today’s post will have my iPad as a central focus.
Since my iPad has the ability to be connected to the Internet not only through Wi-Fi but also through a 3G network, I told James a few days before we left there really wasn’t any need for him to continue to ask people who had previously been to Colorado Springs the best way to get there because I could just map out the directions using Google maps and the GPS system that comes with the iPad. Nevertheless, I noticed he slipped a Rand-McNally roadmap in the backseat of the car before we pulled out of the driveway.
As it turned out, not long after leaving the Oklahoma City metro area, my 3G network began to have spotty reception, and, had it not been for his rather old-fashioned, out-of-touch-with technology insistence on bringing the roadmap, we could have found ourselves wandering around the panhandle of Oklahoma for hours.
But despite that minor glitch in the early part of our trip, the iPad proved useful in the following ways:
1. As a touring guide: As we pulled off the interstate in southern Colorado and entered a small town to eat breakfast, we noticed all the buildings looked quite old. As we passed the center of town, James pointed out a statue, “I wonder what that’s all about?” I had my iPad already opened (playing Words With Friends) and quickly Googled the town’s name. In no time, we were reading about the town’s history in the early 1800’s, its population and a myriad of other details. From that point on, we discovered this was an easy and enjoyable way to pass the time and to learn something about the scenery and the cities along our way.
2. As a means of Bible study: Simply by accessing the websites of some of our favorite Bible teachers and by plugging a cord into our car’s speaker system, we could listen to God’s Word being explained and exalted when we were seemingly “in the middle of nowhere.”
3. As a way to keep records: I found the notepad on the iPad useful for writing down reminders of things to do when I got home, keeping track of receipts, remembering a book I wanted to read and noting the confirmation number of our hotel reservations.
4. As a method of locating places: I used different apps on the phone to find restaurants, a movie theater (with movie reviews), a shopping mall (of course) and a Starbucks.
And, as mentioned, I used it to navigate us to Colorado and back. Sure, my iPad decided to take us on a route different and longer (maybe 70 miles) from one James later discovered on the roadmap, but on the Googled route we learned many unknown things about the towns we passed through—all because of my useful iPad.
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His Glory My Joy, a blog of Author Luana Ehrlich 
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