Blog Suspended~

If you're reading this blog, thank you. I've decided to suspend this blog for at least this month. I'm writing so much on the novel and trying to keep up two blogs is just too much for me. Right now, I'm planning to write my regular blog as often as I can, and for now I'm going to put a chapter from Meeting God in Quiet Places by F. LaGard Smith on my regular blog Saturday and Sunday.

If you want to see my regular blog, go to http://memosfrommimi.blogspot.com/

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive. It's meant a lot to me. I pray that you'll let God come into your life as I know you'll be happier if you do.

Blessings...Mimi

Faith ~ 2

Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.  I Corinthians 1:17

You'll be happy to learn that I'm doing well with my novel writing. I have almost 12,000 words on my way to 50,000. I have the whole month of November to write this book, but with company coming, I have no idea if my writing will end abruptly or continue. Your guess is as good as mine. I was surprised yesterday when I received a box from my sister-in-law, Elaine (Ron's wife), and I opened it up to find two books--one with the first set of lessons and the second set of lessons in another one. Ron has worked with a series of lessons called The Big Picture of the Bible, which is a wonderful overview of God's plan of salvation, and that was also in the box. I've written 80 lessons now, and they were all in the box! It was quite a moment for me. Thanks Ron and Elaine. Ron is still in Mosambique, but will be home on the 9th as far as I know. 

This is the second part of a parable by F. LaGard Smith from Meeting God in Quiet Places: The Cotswold Parables on faith and what it means to have real faith. Many people today have a surface faith, but it takes more than that to get through our lives trusting Christ. However, the reward is great when our faith is strong.

Perhaps we've been fooled by modern televangelists into thinking that if our Christian walk doesn't beam success, then it isn't worthwhile. But if you've read your New Testament, you'll know that the Christian doesn't always have success in this life. Not the kind that other people recognize. It is ironic that when you have a trusting faith, you learn that the meek do inherit the earth, and the kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit. Turning human thinking on its head, Christ said things like: "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first." What? What is that you're saying? I find that hard to believe, Jesus. AND, Jesus said: "He who is least among you is the greatest." There you go again...that just doesn't make any sense. You have to make sense if you want to be accepted. But again, Jesus said: "Whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it." Well, that takes the cake! Such upside-down thinking isn't going to win many followers!



No, you may not get that Cadillac you've been hoping for, or that dream house you have wished for daily. More seriously, the baby may not live and the loved one may leave you. Your marriage may fail and life may not be ideal for you simply because you're a Christian. Christians have death and taxes just like everyone else. If you're looking for a miracle, you may be disappointed.

Now here's something that LaGard says: "It's from the cross that we learn what a Jumbo-size mistake it is to always expect a miracle. We don't preach a rescued Christ but a crucified Christ. Jesus did not miraculously escape the cross; he endured it! He conquered it through faith, and that's how it can be for us. If we can't escape the pain we are experiencing, at least we have assurance that we can endure it. If we can't understand our suffering, at least we know we can overcome it."

Think about it: The miracle is not in changed circumstances, but in our changed attitude about whatever our circumstances are. The miracle of Calvary was how God turned a seeming defeat into  victory: crucifixion into glorification!

How can we share in the true miracle of the cross? 1) Learn to surrender so that you might be exalted.
2) Learn to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God so that He might lift you up.

Does that appeal to our human instincts? I don't think so. But that is our challenge, isn't it? Because the true miracle of the cross--unlike the spectacular story of Jumbo--is not about feeling good with a lot of warm fuzzies once or twice a year, the true miracle is the undeniable fact of Jesus' presence in our lives when the going gets tough. Remember this: Whatever your cross may be, His weakness becomes your strength! And His triumph becomes your hope! 

I'm so glad that you're reading this lesson about faith. It's important that you see how it works in your life. I hope you have a glorious Sunday!

Blessings...Mimi 

Faith

Lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.   I Corinthians 1:17

Chapter nine of Meeting God in Quiet Places: The Cotswold Parables by F. LaGard Smith is titled "Jumbo the Elephant." The parable in this chapter talks about faith, using the heroism of an elephant named  Jumbo. The story that LaGard tells visitors is both entertaining and somewhat believable...at least people believe it at first. When he has visitors, he takes them for walks in the hills, and it's inevitable that they see a large, grass-covered mound bulging out of the ground. It's at least 15 by 25 across and is fenced in to protect it. Almost everyone wants to know what it is. And the story that LaGard tells is that in the 1930s, Jumbo the elephant came to town with a circus. There was a fire and Jumbo lifted a beam from the Mayor's body during a fire and saved his life. But the effort and excitement were too much for Jumbo and he died. The town council were so appreciative of what Jumbo did that they gave him a proper burial, so his body was carried to the top of the hill in Buckland and put in a grave overlooking Evesham, where the circus had been. The story is always believed, at least for a moment. It seems that people want to believe the story because it's a great story if it's true, and it involves a circus. Who doesn't love a circus?

The question is this: Is there something of Jumbo in the Gospel accounts? Jesus was thrilling crowds with His miracles, whether He was turning water to wine, healing the sick, raising the dead, or walking on water, nothing was too difficult for him. The people loved it and wanted to make Him King. They wanted to believe in this wonder-working man because they loved His show, much like a circus. And nothing has changed today. Christmas and Easter still pull in the crowds.

So the next question is: Why did Paul talk so much about "Christ crucified?" He could have talked about Christ's birth, or His resurrection, or even His ascension. The crucifixion seems so negative. It seemed to defeat everything they had come to believe. Because Jesus's own disciples didn't understand the cross at first. They had been envisioning Jesus as King--a political King--with high positions in the kingdom for themselves. They were looking for the spectacular.  They felt the same disillusionment at the foot of the cross that people do today when the very thing that attracted them to Christianity turns out to be just that...an illusion. The magic is gone and the reality becomes apparent--emptiness and foolishness. The show is over.

So where does that leave us? Here we are, hanging in with Christianity, when we suddenly find ourselves bearing a cross! We too find that we have been betrayed by friends and rejected by those who ought to love us most. We too have times of suffering--from literal pain or from the pain of separation from a loved one. These are moments when we feel helpless and vulnerable to situations around us that we can't control.

And these are also the times when we find ourselves--feeling fearful, alone, and helpless--that we turn to hear what Paul has to say: "The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength." It's incredible to understand that because of His own crucifixion, Jesus knows exactly how we feel! During these times, He lifts us up--He on His cross, we on ours.

What else does the cross of Jesus do for us? When you hear a problem-free gospel being preached, the cross of Christ sorts out idealism and realism in our walk as Christians. As LaGard says: "The cross points out the difference between how we want to believe the Christian life and how it is in truth. We want wholenss, but we find tht very wholeness is our brokenness. We want strength, but we discover that our strength comes only through our weakness."

Hmmm...we don't really like weakness, do we? But there is more to this picture than I've explained so far, so tune in for more answers tomorrow. I pray that you'll have a wonderful weekend, and that you remember to thank God every day of your life.

Blessings...Mimi

Women: Sexuality & Justice~

Good morning! I hope you've had a good week and are ready for a glorious weekend. I'm in a hurry this morning--going to have lunch with Alice at 11 AM. But I wanted to give you something to chew on. This is from C. S. Lewis's book God in the Dock. I find it appropriate to think about when I consider what's going on in our world today. Please think about it.

Sexuality and Justice

A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualitites of personality--women don't really care twopence about our looks--by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.

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If this doesn't ring any bells in your head, then you aren't paying attention to what's going on in society. Women need to wake up to the fact that they are in charge of the way this situation goes. I pray that the way women dress and behave to get a man's attention will change. They are giving away their power by living with boyfriend after boyfriend. How can a society survive these attitudes?

Have a great weekend!
Blessings...Mimi

From Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer ~ C. S. Lewis

I'll just tell you that I'm working on the NaNoWriMo Write A Novel Program and am working toward writing a 50,000 word novel. If I can do that, they will publish my novel just for me to have a copy of it for myself, which I would really like. But whether I can do that or not, I can't say at this point. It's very time-consuming to say the least, so I may not put as many blogs on as usual. I hope you'll be patient with me and stay with me as I make this new effort in writing. Meanwhile, I'm giving you some good thoughts from C. S. Lewis.

The Duty of Prayer

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If we were perfected, prayer would not be a duty, it would be a delight. Some day, please God, it will be. The same is true of many other behaviours which now appear as duties. If I loved my neighbor as myself, most of the actions which are now my moral duty would flow out of me as spontaneously as a song from a lark or fragrance from a flower. Why is this not so yet?

Well, we know, don't we? Aristotle has taught us that delight is the "bloom" on an unimpeded activity. But the very activities for which we were created are, while we live on earth, variously impeded: by evil in ourselves or in others. Not to practise them is to abandon our humanity. To practise them spontaneously and delightfully is not yet possible. This situation creates the category of duty, the whole specifically moral realm.

It exists to be transcended. Here is the paradox of Christianity. As practical imperatives for here and now the two great commandments have to be translated "Behave as if you loved God and man." For no man can love because he is told to. Yet obedience on this practical level is not really obedience at all. And if a man really loved God and man, once again this would hardly be obedience; for if he did, he would be unable to help it. Thus the command really says to us, "Ye must be born again." Till then, we have duty, morality, the Law. A schoolmaster, as St. Paul says, to bring us to Christ. We must expect no more of it than of a schoolmaster, we must allow it no less....

But the school-days, please God, are numbered. There is no morality in Heaven. The angels never knew (from within) the meaning of the word ought, and the blessed dead have long since gladly forgotten it. This is why Dante's Heaven is so right, and Milton's, with its military discipline so silly.

...In the perfect and eternal world the Law will vanish. But the results of having lived faithfully under it will not.

I am therefore not really deeply worried by the fact that prayer is at present a duty, and even an irksome one.

As always, these are thoughts from a man who had a higher mind than most of us will ever attain. I hope it helps us in our daily life to consider what he has to say on so many subjects.

Blessings...Mimi

Christian Living~

I have just finished listening to C. S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity. It is quite an amazing book in the way it sets forth what God and Christ have done for us so clearly and concisely. And Lewis has written his book in a way that I haven't heard before or since...so deep and profound that it sweeps one into a feeling of otherworldliness. At least that was my response. I feel very sure that we as humans find it very difficult to grasp what is really going on between us and Christ. But it is to our benefit to find out! 

And I found this information, which I believe will create a setting for Lewis's writing. It is from a study guide on Mere Christianity by Peter J. Schakel at Hope College. I only want to give you the original setting of the book. Schakel says that it was written during some of the darkest days of World War II. London was bombed every night from September 7, 1940, to November 2, 1940. There were 500 tons of bombs and 30,000 incendiaries and landmines dropped on Coventry on November 14. It was a time of blackouts, bomb shelters, shortages, and rationing--and a time of personal searching, wondering, and questioning.  

About this time C. S. Lewis, a Fellow in English at Oxford University, was just becoming known in Christian circles in England. He had written and published The Pilgrim's Regress in 1933 (but it was hardly noticed), Out of the Silent Planet in 1938 (it was more successful), and The Problem of Pain in 1940 (it was not a best seller). Within the next year, Lewis became better known. A serial publication of The Screwtape Letters was published and was so widely read that Lewis's name became almost a household word. Lewis was asked to do a series of talks on Christianity on the radio, and the result of his talks is his book Mere Christianity. So now I want to give you a sampling out of the book, which is for the purpose of making you think!

Christian Living

Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life, we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does, and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has--by what I call "good infection." Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.

Sometimes I'm made aware of how worldly my mind has become as I read such meaningful words. I hope it stirs your heart as well.

Have a good Tuesday!

Blessings...Mimi