Public Figure

Devotion for the Week...

Years before an American election happens, there is speculation about who will run for president. I'm not even American, but I still heard the news the very day that Hilary Clinton officially said she would be running, after several years of speculation about whether or not she would. What amuses me is that these announcements are themselves announced ahead of time, as in "There's a big announcement coming from so-and-so at 1pm today," so that all the major newscasters can be ready to cover the actual  announcement. Even those who are already well known do everything they can to maximize their media exposure.

If you are not so well known, then getting noticed can be very difficult. You have to work hard at finding those photo ops that will get your name into the news...for good reasons and not because you've messed up. You have to be out there, shaking hands, meeting people, taking selfies with supporters. Without being known and gaining approval, without the support of voters who like them, politicians are out of a job.

Interestingly, Jesus' brothers had the same idea. They told Him, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world" (John 7: 3,4). Get out there. Be seen. Show everyone what you can do so they will know all about you. 

But that wasn't Jesus' plan. He wasn't out to win a popularity contest, or to gain a large crowd of followers. Yes, He did a lot of things in public, and a lot of things that were noticed by the crowds, but He wasn't doing them with the goal of gaining popularity. In fact, He sometimes healed people, then told them "See that you don’t tell anyone" (Matthew 8:4). Can you imagine being completely healed of some terrible disease and then being told not to tell anyone how it had happened? I find it hard to imagine anyone today healing people and not wanting to take credit for it.

Jesus was often followed by crowds of people, people who wanted to hear Him teach or receive healing, but I don't find Him sending out announcements of where He would be ahead of time to make sure the crowd grew as much as possible before He arrived. In fact, He often tried to sneak away to quiet places to pray or to spend time teaching His disciples, but the crowds followed Him anyway because He was different. His healings and the authority with which He taught were so different from what people were used to that they sought Him out. Though He didn't make a special effort to draw the crowds, God worked through Him to reach many people.

Of course, not everyone liked Jesus. The very things that made Him liked by the ordinary people were the same things that turned the religious leaders against Him. Once, after Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, "the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus" (Mark 3:6) because He went against their teaching. Though it would eventually lead to His death, Jesus didn't avoid the things that upset the religious leaders. He didn't seek to gain their approval or change His message to make it more appealing to them.

The question, then, is: Who are we imitating? Do we, like the politicians, seek out every opportunity to be noticed, to increase our popularity and have the approval of the most possible people? Or are we content to let God take care of the results?

EPP Stars

I had a really sore neck last week, which kept me from sewing anything at all. It's getting better, finally, so yesterday I tried quilting the wedding quilt I'm working on...I only worked on it for 15 minutes before I felt my neck start tensing up again. That was the end of that. So, there's not much progress to share on that project.

I have been doing a bit of EPP work lately while we've been traveling to appointments or to visit family, though, so it hasn't been a total sewing bust. Since I last shared these stars, I've finished 8 more.

 This is my favourite of the new stars. I just love those blue flowers!

 I used one of my stars to make a pincushion, so my total is now 24 stars.

I still have no actual plan for what I'll do with them. I know I want to connect them with a solid colour, probably grey, so I'm only using prints for the stars. Mostly I just enjoy stitching them while we're on the road, so I'll keep going until I feel like I have enough. Judging by how slowly I'm finishing them, that could be a while. With school ending in two more days (and babysitting ending too!) I'm looking forward to camping trips, hiking and just generally relaxing, which will probably include a few more stars.

Running for Joy

Devotion for the Week...

Happy Father's Day to any fathers reading this week! I feel like my Monday devotions are often a little behind the times, since there are so many Sunday holidays that I want to touch on here (Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, advent), but I don't want to write about them 6 days in advance. Somehow a day late feels more normal than 6 days early :)

The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) really resonates with most people, I think, because we've all been the one who wandered away and got into trouble at some point in our lives. It's an easy story to understand, too. Son takes his inheritance money, leaves home, spends all the money stupidly, realizes how stupid he has been and comes home feeling unworthy to be called a son. Father forgives him completely and celebrates his return. Since it's a parable, we then have to look at the meaning, which is also easy to understand. We are the stupid, wandering child and God is the forgiving Father who welcomes us back home and celebrates our return. It's the perfect Father's Day story!

There's an element of Jesus' story that we can miss, though, because of the cultural differences between our day and His day. By verse 20 of the parable, the son is returning home to ask for work as a servant since he is no longer worthy to be called a son, "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." 

It seems perfectly natural, doesn't it? The story is set in an era long before cell phones and text messages. Whenever we leave family to head home (a drive of several hours no matter who we've been visiting), we're always reminded to text as soon as we get home so they'll know we made it safely. Back then, though, communication would have been pretty much non-existent, especially considering the son left home and "squandered his wealth in wild living" (v 13) in a distant country. The father hasn't heard anything about his son's well-being since he left home. We don't know how long that has been, but the son had time to spend all his money, then to hire himself out to work, and then finally to return home again. The father has been waiting for news for a while and he's anxious about his son, wondering if he's okay.

You know how you can recognize some people by the way they walk, or the way they carry themselves? Well, this dad saw his son when he was still a long way off and he recognized him right away, despite the ragged clothes. Probably excited and relieved, the father runs to his son. This is where the cultural difference trips us up. Grown men didn't run in Jesus' day. It was considered beneath their dignity. This father, by running to embrace his wayward son, was embarrassing himself completely in front of anyone who saw him. But at that moment, the father didn't care about his dignity, or who was watching, or what they would think. His son was home!

Of course, it's only a parable, so this never actually happened as Jesus tells it. But as I said earlier, there's a spiritual meaning here. And if the father in the story represents God, our heavenly Father, then what does the running mean? I think it is all about the father's emotion. Can't you just feel his joy as he runs to his son?

The parable of the prodigal son is one of three stories Jesus told about people who lost something valuable (a sheep and a coin were the other lost things), and in all three stories the emphasis is on the joy when the lost thing is found. The father in the story doesn't simply wait for the son to come to him, nor does he calmly shake his hand, both of which would have been more in keeping with societal norms. He doesn't even wait to find out what his son has been doing all the time he's been away, or why he looks so ragged. No, the father is so overcome with emotion that he runs to greet his son, throwing all thoughts of everyone's expectations aside, and welcoming him with complete acceptance.

God didn't wait for us to come to Him, either. He sent Jesus to be our Savior because He knew there was no other way to restore our relationship with Him. Now, whenever a person accepts Jesus, our Father welcomes him or her with the same complete acceptance, the same celebration, the same boundless joy.

Isn't it wonderful to know that our Father feels such joy over us?