Routine of the Abnormal and the Living Words of GOD!

Clinic mornings are never my favorite and yesterday was no exception. However, as I am learning, our LORD usually lays me metaphorically on my back looking up with no hope in self-salvation before I will pay attention to a truth He must impart.

Jess and I had gone to bed on Monday night discussing Psalm 71-78 (I recommend you read them). Our habit lately is to use the Bible application on my phone (thank you brother Alan for getting me a phone which encourages me to look at JESUS), locate a passage, and select the "read aloud" option and have it read to us. This has been GREAT because it is the closest thing to routine we have going right now. Having arrived Psalm 78:7 which speaks of "setting hope in God" I began to ask Jess what that looks like for her right now. "I have never been so pressed for stillness and had so little of it - yet clinging to the little I do have." Quickly I agreed and added this metaphor:

Have you ever taken a towel that was sopping wet and tried to wring it out completely? God's word is so saturated with Goodness, Greatness, Grace and Glory that even one drop of it is sufficient. So it is that each morning I envision God's word as a sopping wet towel in which the Spirit wrings out just a drop and this is sufficient for me to live on for the day.

Return with me if you will to the morning visit to clinic in which Jada received her chemotherapy and some rather sour news that her counts (especially her hemoglobin) are critically low. This simply means that she is in need of yet another transfusion. The staff will reevaluate her blood-work again tomorrow and determine whether she will have a transfusion. Please pray RIGHT NOW for RISING COUNTS to the Glory of God!

Jada has become increasing soft and her comments generally necessitate a thoughtful response from me. As we got on the highway Jada says, "its crazy that people just throw trash out their window onto the ground dad." "I know sweetie, it does not show respect nor love for what God has given us to take care of does it?" Jada processes and replies, "yeah, and its against the law dad. Did you know dad that there are many laws - some that are even crazy?" "Sure, I knew that sweetie." She looks straight ahead and says, "dad the people that make laws make them for us to live and that is very nice of them. They are kind of like moms and dads because parents make laws at home to help us live."

I thought to myself "I wonder if she sees the connection between this and the commands and prohibitions in the Bible." While still in my own thoughts Jada says, "dad, remember yesterday when I did not listen to you and you spanked me?" "Yes." "That was good because so many people in the Bible had to learn the hard way like me. God loved them but he made laws," she said. "I know Jada, Jesus clearly told us that His words give life and that He himself is the way, truth and the life." I wanted to get her away from the term "laws" and help her see Jesus because he is the fulfillment of those laws (John 5:39).

He is our life, even in the routine of the abnormal.