Archives for February 2011

My Needs are many, but my Supplies are Infinite–Thought for the Day

Irene in New ZealandA salutory reminder of the streams of living water.

My needs are many, but my supplies are infinite

Jesus is the Fountain of grace and mercy.

He alone can give to his people the assurance of hope, because none but He is infinite in power, and infinite in grace. Hear his own declaration, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.’

With this promissory note in my hand, ever payable on demand, when presented by faith and prayer in the name of Jesus, I need not despond. I shall receive in return what will supply my every need out of the fullness which is in Christ Jesus. Out of his fullness, I shall receive, and grace for grace.

My needs are many, but my supplies are infinite. Though millions of weak, tempted, persecuted, dying believers, have been invigorated in every age by this living water, yet its streams are undiminished; it still remains as it ever was — Grace Sufficient!

Sufficient to relieve the needy, to strengthen the weak, to pardon the guilty, to sanctify the unholy, to support the disconsolate, to comfort and save all, however vile and worthless; who sincerely, fervently, and perseveringly seek for it, through faith in Christ.

— Thomas Reade Christian Meditations

The Kingdom of Heaven, Matthew 13, Day 41, Feb 10,

By Anita Mathias

Pearls

²⁴ Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

²⁷ “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

²⁸ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. ³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
An illustrative parable. Wheat and weeds growing together. Let them. God will sort out the wheat, and destroy the weeds in his own time.
Weeds, zizanion, is probably darnel, a weed that resembles wheat in its early growth, but is easily distinguished in maturity.

The Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast

³¹ He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ³² Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
God conquers your heart and calls you to dwell in the Kingdom of heaven, little by little. It comes into your heart like a mustard seed, but will eventually feed and shelter many.
ESV–Israel was not prepared for the insignificant beginnings of the Kingdom of God so this image would have shocked the listeners.
The Kingdom of God would spread throughout the world, and believers from all nations would find rest in it.

³³ He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
A little bit of the yeast of Christ can change a lot in one’s life, and circumstances.
Like yeast in bread, the conversion of an individual to a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, to becoming Christ’s man or woman, is active, though not fully visible at first, since it begins with an inner transformation of the heart.
NIV Yeast here is a symbol of growth. As yeast permeates dough, so the kingdom of heaven spreads through a person’s life. Or it may signify the growth of the Kingdom by the inner working of the Holy Spirit, using God’s word.

³⁴ Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. ³⁵ So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

“I will open my mouth in parables,

I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”

Why parables? They means more. We each fill in the gaps with our own experience. They grow in richness with us.

And for Jesus, teaching to hostile crowds, parables provided safety. He wasn’t talking about the Pharisees, for heaven’s sake. He was talking about wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The Parable of the Weeds Explained

³⁶ Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

³⁷ He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. ³⁸ The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, ³⁹ and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

⁴⁰ “As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. ⁴² They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl

⁴⁴ “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
ESV The Parable emphasized the supreme value of the hidden treasure.

⁴⁵ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

The essential nature of discovering Jesus is that he becomes all in all. He doesn’t do well as being one among a host of other Gods.

The nature of the Kingdom–of living in the world as if one is in heaven, living under the Kingship of Christ, is that one slowly “sells” more and more things for the sake of fellowship with him, to gain him, for his undisputed Lordship over one’s life.

The Parable of the Net

⁴⁷ “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸ When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Good and evil live together until the time of judgement.

⁵¹ “Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked.

“Yes,” they replied.

⁵² He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”
ESV They understand how the “new” revelation of Jesus fulfills the old promises of the Old Testament.

A Prophet Without Honor

⁵³ When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. ⁵⁴ Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. ⁵⁵ “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? ⁵⁶Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” ⁵⁷ And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
They thought he was a jumped-up hometown boy. They did not see the marvelous and miraculous in and about him. And so, he did no miracles there, did not cast his pearls before swine.
Jesus aligns himself with the OT prophets who had revealed God’s will for the people of Israel but had consistently been rejected by them.
The Spirit does not force his miracles on a hostile skeptical audience.
Matthew’s gospel frequently stresses the close relationship between faith and miracles.

The Willingness to Fail and Joy

By Anita Mathias

http://sophiafine.com/main/2008/02/

My forties have been an amazing decade for me, so far. We left America after 17 years and moved back to Oxford, England, and are very happy here. It feels like the right place for us to be.

It also is a decade of experimentation, and trying several new things.
   * * *

In my teens and twenties, I didn’t want to do anything I couldn’t be really good at. At boarding school, run by German and Irish nuns, I had a relentless campaign to be excused from choir and games because I would never be good at them. I wanted to concentrate on academics, in particular literature and debating (and writing, though I didn’t say that) and become really good. Amazingly, the nuns agreed, and I was the only girl accused from compulsory sport, an hour a day, and choir practices.

But I think my old approach of wanting to be good at what I do, or not doing it at all, has often robbed me of joy. I was telling my husband, Roy, that writing this blog, a post a day, has been and is one of the things I have enjoyed most in my whole life.
   * * *

Then I stopped and thought. No, the work I have most enjoyed was the period in my twenties when I read reams and reams of poetry, and wrote poetry. I submitted a slender volume of poetry for my Masters Thesis in Creative Writing (at the Ohio State University) and was accepted for a Ph.D in Creative Writing at the State University of New York, Binghamton to develop, revise and expand it as a Ph.D thesis. (I quit my Ph.D to get married, and am not yet sure if that was a good decision–dropping the Ph.D which was SO, SO stimulating, I mean; not the getting married part).

For the first year and a half of married life, all I did was read poetry, and write poetry. I must have had 50 poems published in magazines around America in that period.

And then, silly girl, I showed them to John Frederick Nims, the editor of Poetry Magazine, then the leading poetry magazine. “So, are they really good?” I asked. “Do you think I might have a career as a poet?” He re-read them, pursed his lips, and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know if I would make major sacrifices for a poetic career if I were you.”

Something else was tugging at the bits: non-fiction writing. Annie Dillard says that moving from only writing poetry to writing “creative non-fiction” is like moving from playing a single instrument to working with a whole orchestra. And there is something to that.

And so, just like that, I gave up reading and writing poetry, which was the most thrilling and fascinating thing I have ever done.

The poet Donald Hall wrote that people abandon poetry, and then talk about it wistfully, as if poetry has abandoned them. So I did, whenever I met poets. “I used to love it too,” I’d say. “I used to write it too.” The poet Ellen Bryant Voight, who I met at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference at Vermont said encouraging, “Well, then, you will write it again, perhaps when the children are older.”

And so I will.
   * * *

Meandering. The point of this post is to say that the idol is broken. The idol of needing to be good at something if I am to do it seriously. The idol of doing it really well or not at all.

In my forties, I have taken things up which, odds are, I may not be brilliant at, but which I immensely enjoy.

My second and third languages at school were Sanskrit and Hindi, and so I have never learned French, but I adore the sound of it. So two years ago, I got a tutor who comes over weekly and works with me on my French, even though I can only dedicate 2-4 hours a week to it. He is a Parisian actor and playwright, living and working in Oxford, who directs his own plays, acts in other people, and adapts books for the stage.

We talk for an hour a week, on everything— films, plays, books, art and Europe, and it is amazing how much fun one can have–rowing far out of shore, talking in a foreign language about things which interest you, while knowing that you are probably making several erreurs per paragraph.

Zoe, 16, and I used to do French conversation together with a native speaker, but now she is seriously working for her G.C.S.E.s and I don’t want to spend more than 3-4 hours on French (an hour of conversation; a hour of grammar and reading a book and Le Monde; two hours on a French movie. So she has Jean-Patrick for her own hour. “Do you think I am now better than you, Mum?” she asked in delight. “Are you going to let me become better than you?” Yeah, I think I am, though it will be hard. The idol of competitiveness is being smashed, along with the idol of being really good at what I take up seriously. It’s freeing to enjoy something for its own sake, without it leading to anything that I can see.
   * * *

Another late-forties project of mine is to become a bit fitter. (To become really fit will be a project for my fifties.) Something else I have taken up recently is tennis, with a coach. There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that I will ever be good at it, as I can’t run fast enough. But that doesn’t prevent it being a lot of fun. Roy watches me in amazement and says, “Wow! You’re really enjoying it. You really enjoy exercise” And so I am.

The girl who hated anything physical now has a gym membership!! Again, I really enjoy yoga, zumba and body combat, while being, quite probably, and– quite probably, quite visibly–the
worst in the room.
   * * *

I don’t think I would have been able to blog in my thirties. I don’t think I would have been able to release work which wasn’t my best. Now, I do. In fact, I don’t even have a blog stack, but press publish as each post is written. Holding on to them, revising them, would be a sure way for perfectionism–and its evil twin, writers’ block–to show their faces again.

In the Shadow of your Wings, Psalm 17, Day 44, Feb 13th,

By Anita Mathias

In the Shadow of your Wings

Psalm 17

ESV notes–An individual lament for cases when the person suffering considers himself unjustly accused of wrong by a worldly enemy. It is a prayer for vindication, ending by expressing confidence in the true portion of the faithful.

A prayer of David.

¹ Hear me, LORD, my plea is just;
   listen to my cry.
Hear my prayer—
   it does not rise from deceitful lips.
² Let my vindication come from you;
   may your eyes see what is right.

³ Though you probe my heart,
   though you examine me at night and test me,
you will find that I have planned no evil;
   my mouth has not transgressed.
⁴ Though people tried to bribe me,
   I have kept myself from the ways of the violent
   through what your lips have commanded.
⁵ My steps have held to your paths;
   my feet have not stumbled.
The word of God has protected the Psalmist.

⁶ I call on you, my God, for you will answer me;
   turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.
⁷ Show me the wonders of your great love,
   you who save by your right hand
   those who take refuge in you from their foes.
⁸ Keep me as the apple of your eye;
Safeguard me as the pupil of your eye. A conventional Hebrew metaphor for protection against oppression.

hide me in the shadow of your wings
evokes a place of safety. Metaphor for the protective outreach of God’s power.
⁹ from the wicked who are out to destroy me,
   from my mortal enemies who surround me.
The Lord can keep one safe amid peril.

¹⁰ They close up their callous hearts,
   and their mouths speak with arrogance.
¹¹ They have tracked me down, they now surround me,
   with eyes alert, to throw me to the ground.
¹² They are like a lion hungry for prey,
   like a fierce lion crouching in cover.
Imagery of one’s opponents hunting one down.

¹³ Rise up, LORD, confront them, bring them down;
   with your sword rescue me from the wicked.
¹⁴ By your hand save me from such people, LORD,
   from those of this world whose reward is in this life.
The Psalmist sums up the world view of those who have no fear of God in this phrase.
May what you have stored up for the wicked fill their bellies;
   may their children gorge themselves on it,
   and may there be leftovers for their little ones.
ESV notes–In such an environment of threat, the proper recourse is prayer for the enemy’s defeat. Since they are unrepentant, deliverance for the pious requires defeat for the attacker. The specific type of defeat is left up to God.

¹⁵ As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face;

when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.

In the Shadow of your Wings, Psalm 17, Day 44, Feb 13th,

By Anita Mathias

In the Shadow of your Wings

Psalm 17

A prayer of David.

¹ Hear me, LORD, my plea is just;
   listen to my cry.
Hear my prayer—
   it does not rise from deceitful lips.
² Let my vindication come from you;
   may your eyes see what is right.

¹⁵ As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face;

when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.

The First Thing in the Morning!

By Anita Mathias

My preferred First Thing in the Morning activity

I wrote this years ago, when we lived in America and Zoe was a baby. It was published in The Washington Post in 1997! I thought you might enjoy it.

The First Thing in the Morning

Exercise first thing in the morning, my personal trainer says. The discipline will spill over to the rest of the day. It jump-starts your metabolism, so that you burn more calories, whether you read or cook or nap. And if you wake early enough, you can walk on the golf course.

Pray first thing in the morning, the radio preacher thunders. Jesus rose before the dawn to pray to his heavenly father. Pray before phone-calls and mail and frustrations jangle your spirit; pray while your mind is clear and tranquil, and you can hear what the Lord God has to say. The plug of prayer connects you to the power you need for the day.

“Write first in the morning,” my writing teacher advises. The only way to learn to write is by writing. And that way you’re sure you’ve done it. Your unconscious is closer to its dream state early in the morning. It can fly. He quotes Goethe: “Write at dawn, skim the cream of the day, then you can study crystals, intrigue at court, and make love to your kitchen maid.” Trollope rose at 5:30 a.m. to write; he wrote seventy books. Hemingway rose at six, wrote till midday, and then had fun.

But read before you write, the teacher adds. Books come from other books. The rhythms of your favorite writer will throb in your veins; they will pulse through your writing.

Study your dreams which offer you the wisdom of the unconscious, my therapist suggests. Your dream of arriving late to a party you’re hosting, arriving after the glutted guests couldn’t care less about you, is an admonition that you are working too hard. You are missing the party of your life. Record your dreams first thing in the morning. Delay ten minutes and you forget the dream; its details blur.

Do difficult things first thing in the morning, I note at the brown-bag lecture, “Organize Yourself.” The longer you delay, the tireder you grow, the harder seems the task. “Procrastination makes easy things difficult, and difficult things impossible.”

The alarm shrills at five a.m. The dog wants to go out. The coffee must be brewed. I must brush my teeth and wash my face and comb my hair. I must be quiet, or I will wake the baby.

Voices sound around me, mentors and tormentors. Drink lemon and honey the first thing in the morning; it purifies the blood. Pray, exercise, read, write, record your dreams–the first thing in the morning. The world comes at me. I duck under the comforter.

I wake, much later, to the baby’s first cry. I write this the last thing at night.

Joseph’s Dangerous Gift Lingers, Genesis 40, Day 40, Feb 9th, Blog Through the Bible Project

By Anita Mathias

Jozef Schenker, Joseph in Prison

Brilliant. God gives Joseph the interpretation of two dreams, which prepares the way for Joseph to be used by God to interpret the Pharaoh’s two dreams, leading to the subsequent fulfillment of Joseph’s two dreams.

Genesis 40

The Cupbearer and the Baker

¹ Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. ² Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, ³ and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. ⁴ The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.

After they had been in custody for some time, ⁵ each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.
God is beginning to prepare the way for Joseph’s rise in Egypt.

⁶ When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. ⁷ So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”

⁸ “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

Joseph steps out in faith, trusting God. “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” Even in prison, Joseph uses his special gift of understanding and interpreting dreams.
NIV Joseph presents himself as God’s agent through whom God will make known the revelation contained in their dreams. He is the prototype of Israel, God’s prophetic people through whom God’s revelation comes to the nations.

⁹ So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, ¹⁰ and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. ¹¹ Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”

¹² “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. ¹³ Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. ¹⁴ But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. ¹⁵ I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”

R.T. Kendall comments on this that there is still a note of self-pity. Joseph is still not surrendered to God’s will and God’s timing. He is therefore still not completely a man whom God can use. He is still quite understandably attempting to work out his own deliverance.

¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.^[a] ¹⁷In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”

¹⁸ “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. ¹⁹ Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”

²⁰ Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: ²¹ He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand— ²² but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.

²³ The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.

Joseph’s attempts to work out his own deliverance fail. The cupbearer is dreadfully ungrateful and forgetful.

The challenge to Joseph: Will he allow himself to become bitter?

Joseph’s Dangerous Gift Lingers, Genesis 40, Day 40, Feb 9th, Blog Through the Bible Project

By Anita Mathias

Jozef Schenker, Joseph in Prison

Genesis 40

The Cupbearer and the Baker

⁸ “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”

¹⁶ When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.