by Roseanna White | Aug 16, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
We’ve been reading through Matthew lately, and really digging deep, as we tend to do in our Bible studies. This weekend, we were in Matthew 14–quite a chapter! We learn about the beheading of John, and how Jesus sought some solitude after getting the news, He tried to go off by Himself…only to be followed by quite a crowd that He ended up feeding. After that miraculous meal, He sends the disciples off on the boat, goes to get that prayer time that was interrupted before, and then catches up with them…in the middle of the storm-tossed lake. On foot.
These familiar stories that we know oh-so-well can sometimes be hard to dig deeper into. We’ve heard them so many times, we just assume we know what they’re saying, and what they mean, and what their import really is.
This time, something new jumped out at me.
As Jesus is walking to the disciples on the water, they see Him and think it’s an apparition. The Greek work used is phantasma, from which we get phantom–used to mean vision more than disembodied spirit, for which they frequently used angelos (angel). Regardless, the disciples are a little freaked out, to say the least.
And Jesus is quick to say, “Hey, chill out! It’s just me!” (Totally his words. Very literally translated. Ahem.)
We all know what Peter said in response. But have you ever really thought about it? Look at this.
“Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
Um…what? Who here has ever reacted that way? “Lord, if that’s You nudging me to do something, command me to perform a miracle”… “Lord, if that’s you tugging on my heart, tell me to jump out of the airplane”…”Lord, if that’s You beside me in my troubled times, tell me to do the impossible.”
That isn’t the human response. We never ask for anyone, even God to prove Himself by having us do something risky and awe-inspiring. We ask Him to do it, maybe…but in this passage, He already was. He was walking on the water already. (I mean really, who else could it have been??)
That takes a particular kind of faith, that Peter invokes. And as my husband said, “I wonder if this is the moment where it became so clear that Peter was the Rock on which the church should be built.” Because he’s the only one who greeted terror with, “Lord, let’s do something miraculous together.” Yes, he took his eyes off Jesus, and when he did so, he began to sink. But still–let’s not forget that first he not only asked to join Him, he demanded it as proof.
Do we do that? Do we demand, as proof of our Lord’s identity, that He do something amazing through us?
Should we?
When Peter and Jesus make it back to the boat, the storm ceases, the wind dies down. And the disciples all say–for the FIRST TIME in this Gospel–“Wow. This dude’s the Son of God.”
Why? Why then do they proclaim it? Just a few chapters before, Jesus calmed another storm on a tumultuous sea, and it made them ask. Made them wonder who this guy was. Why, this time, did it become clear?
My first thought was that it was because He did that little walking on water bit.
But many prophets had subdued nature and the laws of physics before. We have Elijah praying for no rain, then for rain. Making an ax-head float. Making oil never run out. We have a dead man springing to life by merely touching his bones.
Miracles, all. So Jesus calming storms made them certain He was, at least, a prophet.
But there’s a big difference between a prophet and the Son of God.
A prophet could have calmed the storm. Maybe a prophet could have even walked on water (after all, if an ax-head can be made to rise to the top of the water, why not a person?).
As I debated this question in our study, there was only one thing I could come up with that really set this incident apart as Son-of-God-unique. And that was Peter. That Jesus could command Peter to come to Him. So far as I can recall, no other prophet could confer the miracle like that. Yes, they had people act in faith–go dip in the Jordan five times; pour out the oil and make a cake. But the miracle wasn’t performed by them.
Peter partook in the miracle, though. Peter was the doer of it. Much like the disciples went out and did the work in Jesus’ name. That means that Jesus had to have the authority, to grant it to them. Only an heir could do that. Only a Son of the Most High.
I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Peter…and in this passage, he really taught me something about what my faith should be. It shouldn’t just ask for God to DO…it should demand He do it through me. It should demand to partake of the miracle. Not just to watch, but to do. To be a co-heir. To have some of that authority.
Whenever I’m in doubt, I shouldn’t just say, “Lord, show me the way I should go.” I should be saying, “Lord, do the impossible through me.”
by Roseanna White | Jul 19, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
For my daily study each morning, I’ve been reading through a chronological Bible called So That’s Why Bible. I love the history and context this Bible gives me–I’ve never been a huge fan of the “application” style notes in a study Bible, but I’ve always loved the historical notes (you’re shocked, right? LOL) so this Bible is right up my alley.
My readings last week took me through the end of King David’s reign. First the account in Samuel and then in Chronicles. The historians who put this Bible together had already pointed out that the prophetic account of Samuel and the historical account of Chronicles tell of the same events in very different lights–namely, that Chronicles never sheds a bad (or realistic) light on David, only noting his victories and good qualities.
This came into sharp focus in comparing 2 Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21–when David orders a census of Israel. Both agree that this was a big deal and a big mistake, and that it resulted in a plague sent by God that destroyed 70,000 Israelites before the Lord relents.
But in 2 Samuel, it says, “Again the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.'” Contrast that with I Chronicles 21:1. “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel.”
Whoa. God…or Satan? Which one moved David to do this? That seems like a pretty big difference, right? And quite a contradiction.
I brought this up with my husband the other day, and then shared another interesting historical note from these commentators. That the notion of Satan has changed over the centuries. In the earliest Jewish writings, Satan wasn’t written as a figure of evil. He was more what we’d consider a prosecutor in a legal setting. He’s the one against us, the defendant, but he’s not necessarily evil. He’s an adversary in a legal or even political sense. But the only times we see Satan mentioned in the Old Testament are:
Here in Chronicles. In Job, where God and Satan are discussing Job and Satan is given leave to test him, and then in Zecharaiah, where again Satan is present in the throne room of God, opposing the high priest. The evil force we associate with Satan–which we in fact put on the serpent in Genesis, though it never names him as such–isn’t present in those early histories.
Where and when did that understanding come in? According to these historians, not until the Babylonian exile. While in Persia, they would have been rubbing elbows with worshipers of Zoroastrianism. I wrote about this in
Jewel of Persia, so I perked up when I read that, LOL. In this monotheistic religion, there are two opposing forces. Ahura Mazda, who represents all good. And Angra Mainu, who is all evil. Both have a host of deities equivalent to angels and demons on their side, and they are constantly at war. Humans must decide which side they’re on, which battle they’ll fight, and it is a matter of human decisions which one will ultimately win. In this system, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainu are equals. Diametrically opposed, but by nature equal.
You can certainly see some similarities between their religion and Judeo-Christian beliefs, right? But I’d never really paused to realize that this idea of Satan as evil wasn’t even present in Judaism before that. Satan was an enemy, yes. Like a lawyer on the opposite side of a case is an enemy–that doesn’t make him by nature evil. I’d never realized that this could have come in part from Persian beliefs.
Of course, I’m not trying to answer the question of whether that was when they realized the truth of the matter or what. Historically, it’s just an interesting note. And as my husband pointed out, it actually answers my question of “Don’t those passages contradict?” with the Samuel and Chronicles accounts of the census.
Before the idea of Satan being the ultimate evil, he was mostly just depicted as a tool–a necessary part of divine justice. The one to accuse mankind. In this way, it’s not so contradictory, is it? God was angry with Israel, so he stirred David against them…how? Perhaps by using Satan to do it? It’s an interesting question, anyway.
I’m not pretending to have uncovered any profound answers here, but I do love viewing the Bible through a historical context and seeing what new things I discover!
Have you ever noticed the differences in those accounts before? Or wondered at how Satan is mentioned in the old books of the OT? What’s your understanding?
by Roseanna White | Jun 21, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Over the weekend, my husband and I took a drive to meet up with some good friends for a dinner, halfway between where we live. We’ve been trying to do this somewhat regularly, and it’s inevitably a wonderful evening.
This time, we realized that it’s been 18 years since we all met and became friends–our first week of college. That’s half our lives. And after being a bit staggered at that, we took a few minutes to laugh and just be glad that we’re still friends. That even though sometimes a year has gone by without us getting together, as soon as we’re back in each other’s company, it’s like it’s only been a few weeks.
I know most of us have friends like that. The kind that can just pick up where we left off. The kind with a firm, solid foundation that time can only temper, not crack.
It’s especially wonderful to know that these friends are those kinds of friends, because we’d talked about it in our college days. In those first few years, as we began losing touch with high school friends and realized that, sadly, some were just “high school friends,” we expressed our desire to be more than just “college friends.” And we are.
Certainly, I still have friends I love from my earlier days, from childhood. We too can get together and it feels like it hasn’t been as long as it’s been. But let’s face it: we all also have friends for a season. Or friends in particular circumstances. We have work friends that don’t translate into best friends. Or maybe we have church friends that we never see out of church. I have writing friends that I only ever talk to online now and then, occasionally meet at a conference–we get along, we have a great time, but that’s all it is.
But then there are the ones that transcend the type or circumstance, right? Stephanie began as a writing friend, a critique partner, but we certainly talk about more than writing now. We talk about everything. It was strange, eight or nine years ago, to realize that this young woman I’d only ever met once, who I emailed every day, had become my best friend. And yet now, all these years later, it’s a given part of our lives–that our best friend lives a thousand miles away, we only see each other in person once a year, but we can still be there, daily most of the time, through the wonders of the internet.
There are still Martin and Kimberly, with whom we can have conversations filled with depth and laughter and insight, the silly and the profound. We can know that whether it’s been a month or a year, we’ll pick up where we left off.
I’m so grateful that God brings people into our lives as we need them. Some for a season. Some for a particular reason. Some forever. I pray that I can be the kind of friend each of
my friends need–again, sometimes just in glimpses, sometimes steadily and forever.
Do you have any friendships that you were surprised to find had deepened beyond the season or type? Or one that has persevered for decades? How did you and your best friend come to be best friends?
by Roseanna White | Jun 14, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
We set goals.
We work hard.
We sweat.
We cry.
We bleed.
We tumble down exhausted.
We stretch out our hands, willing our fingers to reach that last . . . single . . . inch.
Did we get there?
There. The end goal. The place we want to be.
There. The thing always just out of reach.
There. The place that, when we think we are there, can slip away the moment we’re not looking.
Have you been in that position? Where you think you’ve gained ground, only to lose it? Or where you feel like you’ve fallen just short of your goal?
Have you, on the other hand, been resting long and safe in this There, not stretching for another goal when maybe you should be?
I’ve been giving a lot of thought this last week to my there. My here. Where goals and realities meet and where they clash. What I count a failure and what I count a success, and what’s really within my power to change.
And I keep coming back to one simple truth.
There can be anywhere–but it’s only a success if I’m in the There where He wants me to be, fully reliant on Him. Sometimes, at least for me, success means taking things for granted. Success means slipping into pride. Success means that I begin to think I can instead of He can. In those moments, success in the world can mean failure in the soul.
Thank you, Lord, for reminding me always that while I’m called to do Your work, I’m not called to do it on my own strength, but through Yours. ONLY through Yours.
What is the There that you’re reaching for right now? Is it close? Too far? Are your in a period of straining or a period of rest?
Are you stretching far enough?
And most importantly, are we stretching our hands out only with His?
by Roseanna White | May 31, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
There’s a passage in Matthew. We all know it. But I admit it always baffled me a little. It’s from chapter 9, verses 14-17.
14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”
15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends
of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the
days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
I’ve read this countless times. But not until recently, when we got to it in our Bible study, did it finally click. And I think in part it’s because our culture doesn’t make wine like they used to.
In Jesus’s day, wineskins were made of leather. Now, leather has a bit of give to it–it can grow, and it can shrink as it cures. Back in Ye Olden Days, when you wanted a leather garment–gloves, pants, etc–to fit you perfectly, you would buy it a bit large and then soak it in warm water on your hand, etc., until it had shrunk to fit you. Then when you let it dry, voila! Perfect fit.
The leather used for wineskins would expand with the wine. As grapes ferment, they release gases, and the leather would grow with it because it was supple and new and hadn’t been cured yet. So you could fill it up, and the container would grow as the contents demanded. Pretty cool, huh? But that only works with new leather. If you put the wine into an old wineskin that had already been stretched out . . . well, that’s not going to go so well. The gases are going to be released, but the leather isn’t going to have any more give. So it will break. Burst. And all the wine is lost.
That part I’ve known for a while . . . but I still wasn’t sure how it applied to the question that John’s disciples were asking Jesus. What does that have to do with mourning? For me, the key to understanding why this an appropriate reaction from Jesus required going back to the key point of the wine in wineskins. What was the basic problem? The wine doesn’t fit.
That’s what Jesus is getting at here. There are times in life when mourning doesn’t fit. His disciples were still in celebration mode–their Savior was there! Among them! Teaching and performing signs and wonders. Preaching the gospel and healing the sick. This thing that humanity had been waiting for millennia–it was happening!
That, my friends, is cause for
Joy. So how could His disciples have partaken in the things of mourning, like fasting? Had they tried it, it would have burst its confines . . . and then what would have happened? The wine would have been lost.
But Jesus knew well a time was coming when they would mourn. The new cloth would age. The wineskin would grow to its limit. The relationships He cultured so carefully would mature, and then the disciples would be sent out on their own to become the teachers in His absence.
This is life. This is the way of things. Celebration eventually gives way to mourning. Life contains, always, both good and bad.
But here’s what I really loved about this analogy as I paused to contemplate it. In His analogy, mourning is represented by the wine. The disciples are the wineskin. If you tried to force mourning into something unstretched, it would break. But wine itself wasn’t a drink of mourning. It was a drink of celebration. And the oldest wine is the better wine, traditionally.
So what is best for the celebration? That which has grown and stretched, that which has mourned. That which is tested and tried.
Mourning is a part of our celebration . . . and celebration is a part of our mourning. The two are meant to go hand in hand. Celebration will eventually give way to sorrow, yes . . . and sorrow will give way again to
Joy. There’s a cycle to it.
And the wise man is the one who knows which time is which and can see the presence of each in the other.
by Roseanna White | May 10, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Tuesday afternoon, I pulled back into my driveway after a lovely retreat with Stephanie Morrill, best friend and critique partner extraordinaire.
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| Arriving at our rental house, energetic and ready to go! |
If you’ve been hanging around my blog any length of time, you’ll have a good idea of what our writing retreats look like. Pretty much like this.
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| Working…working…working… |
We do a whole lot of writing. A bit of outdoor exercise. We eat…
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| What? Chocolate is the most essential food group on a writing retreat! |
We brainstorm. We laugh. But mostly, the hours are spent there at our laptops, where the word counts can pile up and the scenes-to-go list can keep on shrinking.
So in case you’re curious, here’s a day by day recap of how this year’s retreat went for me. My main project was finishing up The Number of Love, the story of Margot, little sister to Lukas from A Song Unheard and the first book in my new Codebreakers Series, which will begin next summer from Bethany House.
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| My spot. We were so happy to see super-comfy leather furniture! |
Thursday afternoon, I picked Stephanie up from the airport (it was my year to host), and we drove to a cute AirB&B house in Arnold, MD. After we got settled and chowed down on some gourmet food (or, you know…mac and cheese), we claimed our spots, plugged in our laptops (the plugs never moved) and got started. That first evening, I wrote almost 5,000 words…which it would usually take me 2-3 days to achieve.
On Friday, our first full day, we both got started early, determined to hit our usual daily goal for when on retreat: 10,000 words. We also discovered the local grocery store, explored the neighborhood a bit, and decided that the outdoor patio was our new favorite spot for meals. By the end of the day, I’d logged 11,000 words–which of course means we celebrated with ice cream.
Yes, there’s a lot of ice cream on our retreats. To reward ourselves when we hit our goal. Or, if we fall short, to console us. 😉
Saturday we kept on plugging along. We had big plans for dinner–pizza that was delivered straight to our door (not a luxury I ever get to enjoy out in the country)–and I had a major breakthrough when I realized that I could make a change to my plot that would consolidate, make the ending more active, and bring things to a much better conclusion than what I’d had planned. Woot! I realized by the end of the day on Saturday, that I would definitely be able to finish this book on Sunday. YAY!!! I reached my 10,000 words and felt like I was in a great place for the next day. So totally deserving of that ice cream.
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| My room decorated with books. #love |
Sunday, I took no pictures. Because I had to FINISH. We did take a walk, during which Stephanie helped me brainstorm my climax scenes. We ate chicken pot pies, because for some reason, these are our quintessential retreat food. And I did it. I wrote 12,000 words, which got me to the end of the story! Ish. As soon as I went to bed, I realized I’d forgotten a conversation and knew I’d need to flesh out another. But, you know. Finishedish is a perfectly valid thing to be after a 12K-word day. 😉
Monday I got up and made those additions, which took me an hour or two and added another 1,000 words to the manuscript. It came in at a really reasonable (for me) 113,000 words…which is always what I’m aiming for, but I often don’t finish up until 120-124,000 words, so this felt really great, LOL.
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| Where I worked in the mornings, while drinking my coffee |
It was then time to shift gears, and I’d so hoped I’d have time for this! I needed to plot out my next Guideposts book for the Secrets of Wayfarers Inn Series too, and I was praying I’d finish my other one with time enough to spare on the retreat for this. I started out with some basic brainstorming and researching and then hit upon the idea that really grabbed me while Stephanie finished up her last few scenes of her WIP too.
We decided it was time to hit the town and went out for our only meal that we ate out of the house, LOL–at Cantler’s, which is a seafood institution in the Annapolis area. And to which I’d never been, because I hate seafood, LOL. But I’m happy to report that their blackened chicken bruschetta sandwich is THE best chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten in my life. So. Good. We enjoyed a relaxed, leisurely lunch by the water, neither of us feeling pressed for time–not always a guarantee on the last full day.
In the afternoon, I turned our brainstorming of my Guideposts book into a rambling story synopsis, really pleased that the ideas all started coming together. We enjoyed our last ice cream celebration, did some serious laughing, and turned in.
Our last morning there, I plugged my synopsis into the requisite story development worksheet I need to turn in to my editors, got a start on the first chapter that I also have to turn in, and then we started cleaning up…and taking more pictures. 😉 After our last lunch, we checked out and headed home.
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| Our last lunch outside on the patio |
Overall, it was a such a wonderful, blessed weekend. Stephanie and I only see each other once a year, so it’s awesome to actually get to see each other face to face, laugh together, and do on-the-spot brainstorming as we work. I met all my goals and feel really pleased with how the projects came together. There’s work yet to do on both, but those deadlines no longer look like fire-breathing-monsters, so we’re good. 😉
Thanks for bearing with me as I vanish and then chat about it! Stop back tomorrow for a Friday from the Archives that remembers a day before I got my first “yes” from a publisher…and how the same friends I enjoy getting away with now to meet our deadlines were the ones to help me smile through the disappointments before we got here.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.