by Roseanna White | Jun 29, 2017 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Last weekend I had the honor of filling in in our church’s pulpit. I sat down to write my sermon thinking I’d base it on a blog post from last August . . . but was in for a surprise as I did some more research.
Did you know that the English definition of blessing carries a physical meaning that no other language reflects? I didn’t either! And the reasons are quite interesting. You can watch to find out what the historical meaning is, how English has changed it over time, and what God really promises us.
Sermon – The Gift of a Blessing from WhiteFire TV on Vimeo.
by Roseanna White | May 18, 2017 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Last weekend, my dad preached on a rather familiar passage in Philippians 4. His sermon was great, focusing on how God can conquer any of our weaknesses and enable us to do the work He calls us to. It was a message full of things you just want to shout “Amen!” to. (You can watch it here if you need this reminder right now.)
But something struck me as he just read the passage at the start of the sermon. Something that hadn’t quite ever struck me this way before. Let’s look at Phil 4:11-13.
I’ve read this verse in context countless times. But before, every time I reached verse 13, I defaulted to “Oh, I’ve memorized this one!” So I just recite to myself as that mantra, that motto, that reminder that with Christ, I can conquer anything the world throws at me.
True.
But last weekend, I read it differently. Because this verse isn’t just about conquering and coming out on top, right? It’s about withstanding. It’s about existing in ways we might not deem good.
It’s not just about Jesus helping you find food.
It’s about Him sustaining you through times of hunger.
It’s not just about Jesus helping you defeat your enemies.
It’s about Him holding you close when they win.
It’s not just about Jesus giving you enough.
It’s about Him giving you strength when there isn’t enough.
Paul says time and again how much he’s suffered for the sake of the cross, and for the first time, as I read this I realized it was another example of it. Another way that Paul says, “Listen, friends. Sometimes we have and sometimes we don’t. But in all times, He’s there. And through Him, we can learn to thrive even in those bad times. We can be content without ‘enough.’ We can be content in pain. We can be content when the world hates us.”
Yes, He does also give us the strength to do. To fight, to be brave, to overcome our limitations and be used by Him. He enables us to answer the call He puts on our lives.
But sometimes, He also just gives us the strength to be, when we don’t feel like it. He fills us when by rights we should be drained. He teaches us how to greet with peace a tumultuous, bitter world that will abuse us.
Sometimes the only victory we can cling to is that Christ is in us.
And that’s enough.
by Roseanna White | May 4, 2017 | Thoughtful Thursdays
Yesterday, I attended the funeral of my 103-year-old great-grandmother, who passed away over the weekend. And while I was teary-eyed and sniffly at it (which is for me the equivalent of outright crying), I didn’t leave the service feeling wrung out or devastated or, honestly, even sorrowful.
I left the service feeling uplifted. Inspired. Because this woman whose blood runs partially through my veins was amazing. Not the sort of amazing that claims material success or fame or awards-won or anything like that–the kind that crafted a family full of people who love. Who love her, who love each other, who saw through her unflagging example how to love their neighbors.
As I listened to the stories people shared about Maxine Higson Seward, I sat in awe of how this one small woman could love so much. So completely. So without question. And I knew that that was the kind of legacy God wants us to leave in this world. The kind we spend a lifetime building. The kind that we don’t pass along by creating something that lasts after us–books or statues or inscriptions on palace walls–but by teaching others to be the same way, who will in turn teach others, and so on.
And because I process emotions through writing, I of course then try to think of characters I’ve written that model the principles my Grandma Seward always lived out. And though there have been several small examples through the years and books, I realize that the series I’m working on right now, Shadows Over England, portray this selfless love in rather ironic ways.
Perhaps no one would expect me to dedicate books about thieves to my saintly grandmother, who gave, never stole. But I’m going to. Because what I love about this fictional family I’ve created is that, though they were misguided, they will sacrifice anything for each other. They will go out of their way to help each other, or others they deem “theirs.” They may not always know the Right Way to act, but they know why to act–for those they love. In so many ways, this rag-tag collection of orphans I’ve decided to write about demonstrate what family should, in my opinion, be. What my family is.
I’ve thought here and there over the years about what kind of legacy I’m building. I have my books, of course. All the millions of words I’ve typed and put out there. But more important is what I’m teaching my children about life and family and God and giving. About their hearts and their service and their example. More important is teaching them that by loving others, you build something bigger than you are.
I’m not the same sort of person Grandma Seward was. My life certainly isn’t the same type she lived. But if I and it are guided by the same principles, then I know it would make her–and my Lord and Savior–smile.
Whatever my profession, I can be His follower first.
Whatever else I am, I can be a dedicated mother.
Wherever I live, I can help my neighbors.
Wherever I go, I can point the Way to Him.
Whatever my feeling on a matter, I can demonstrate patience and love.
And whatever else I might do or not do in this world, whatever I might leave behind, I can say in all certainty, “I want to be like Grandma.” That doesn’t mean I’ll be sitting on the porch shelling beans and making them stretch–it means whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it for those I love and the God who gave them to me.
by Roseanna White | Apr 20, 2017 | Thoughtful Thursdays
So I’ve been working through some things this week–and anyone who knows me knows that my “working through” usually involves writing. Where better to compose my thoughts, then, than for you all, right? 😉
I think the kernel of what’s been bothering me is assumptions.
Now, again, anyone who knows me knows that not only am I an optimist, I’m a “give them the benefit of the doubt” sort of person. My husband is regularly amused at how I’ll bend over backward to try to find a logical reason why that driver might have cut us off–“It’s a minivan, maybe she’s got six kids in there and one of them just threw a toy at her head!”–or why someone is totally rude in a store–“I guess we don’t know what bad news they may have just gotten.”
Then there are the times when humanity just disappoints or frustrates me, when I can’t explain away bigotry or cynicism or prejudice or . . .
It’s especially upsetting to me when it happens within the church. When people who are supposed to be my brothers and sisters in Christ dismiss other brothers and sisters in Christ as heretics and condemn them to hell just because they don’t believe exactly the same as they do on a few matters. When they try to claim they understand the other side and proceed to state the opposition’s beliefs as if with authority . . . and when they’ve got those beliefs wrong. When they’re clearly just parroting what they’ve been told without ever actually talking to someone of those beliefs and asking for an explanation. Oh, they talk to them–to try to convert them to their way of thinking. But when you start a conversation with the assumption that the other person is wrong, what are the chances that you’ll see any truth they have to share?
Why is it easier to condemn than to wonder if maybe we don’t understand something correctly?
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s part of my rather unique education. Maybe it’s because I’ve been taught to ask questions rather than assume answers . . . but why do people behave this way? It hurts my soul when I see someone who’s supposed to be representing my faith snarling at other Christians like that. When I realize that this is why so many people today think Christianity is a joke. Because some people can’t fathom that God is bigger than our finite understanding. They are so convinced that they have every detail right that they’ll condemn or dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree on every point.
It hurts me when the people of God act like the world–no, worse, when they act like the very hypocrites Jesus argued with in His day.
This isn’t the way we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to be united with other believers, no matter if they’re Baptist or Methodist, Lutheran or Episcopalian, Catholic or Greek Orthodox. There are differences, yes–but if perhaps we stop coming at those differences from the assumption that “I’m right and they’re wrong,” we might actually learn something from one another. And we might actually learn something about God. We might realize that they believe what they do for reasons, and that we were taught it’s wrong belief because our ancestors rejected either the verses or interpretation; reasons for them to think we’re wrong. We might actually read something through new eyes and realize that we’re not as far apart on an issue as some people on both sides want us to think we are.
I told my husband the other day that I’d come to a rather odd conclusion: that I could live out my faith in any number of church congregations. I could live out my faith in a Catholic church, or a Greek Orthodox, or a Methodist, or a Lutheran. I could live out my faith pretty much anywhere. But I couldn’t live out my faith in that church that ought to be similar to my own, under the direction of someone who would label me a heretic because I don’t label other people such.
But you can’t learn if you start from the assumption that you are right.
You can’t teach if you start from the assumption that the other person has nothing to teach you, or is a lost cause.
You can’t reach the lost if you start from the assumption that they’re worse than you.
I’d rather assume people are better than they are, that they’re capable of goodness and learning and fairness and love, and be taken advantage of or disappointed, than to live my life waiting for people to fail, expecting them to sin, searching for reasons to dismiss them or sneer at them or condemn them. I’d rather turn the other cheek and give my shirt as well when someone demands my coat than be combative and victimized and capable of seeing only my own cause.
I’d rather eat with sinners than with religious hypocrites. And I think I’m in good company there.
by Roseanna White | Apr 14, 2017 | Bible Study, Thoughtful Thursdays
I’m not sure where this week went–I knew yesterday was Thursday, because I had prep work to do for our Thursday-before-Resurrection-Day dinner…but that it should have been a blogging day totally escaped me.
It’s been that kind of week. 😉
Anyway! As we’re here in the midst of Holy Week, that means I’m wrapping up the 40 Days of Jesus reading challenge and will be back to normal blogging next week. This week’s readings took us through how we’re to behave in church, communion, spiritual gifts, the famous Love Chapter, speaking in tongues, and the resurrection. All such important things!
This year I’ve been reading from The Message and then pulling out my trusty NKJV just to compare. I used to be wary of The Message–I like literal translations–until I read the intro and realized that the translator’s goal was not to create a new, exclusive version, but for it to be a companion to other, literal translations–that he merely wanted his version to breathe new life into passages that may have grown stale over the years, to show something in a new way.
In passages as familiar as these, that was a real blessing to me, and I found myself quoting bits and pieces of it to the Facebook group on several days. But I was especially grateful for the fresh perspective in chapter 13, which I have read so many times in so many places that sometimes my eyes glaze over when I see it on yet another wedding program, and I mutter something along the lines of, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” (When I catch myself doing this with any passage, I try really hard to find something new in it!)
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
First off, it’s worth noting what word is used for
love here. It’s not
eros–the romantic, sensual love. It’s not
philos–deep friendship that is used many times in the new testament. It’s not
ludos–the playful or even flirtatious affection between children or in a new relationship. It’s not even
pragma–the longstanding and lasting love associated with established married couples, which involves sacrifice and reason (same root as
pragmatic). It’s certainly not
philautia–self-love. (There’s a really good article on the types of love
here.)
This love is, of course, agape–a radical kind of love to talk about at the time. And still radical today, despite our familiarity with the word. This is selfless, unconditional love. The kind of love God has for us, yes, but the kind we’re also called to have for everyone else.
Now I’m pausing to ask myself–do I have a “me first” attitude? Do I
care for myself more than others? Am I pushy? Do I trust God always?
If my answers aren’t right, then I’m bankrupt.
And what happens when we relate it back to the spiritual gifts, which is where the conversation comes from? We can seek all those gifts–both the flashy and the quiet. We can speak in the tongues of men and angels. We can prophesy. We can heal. We can do miracles. But those are all subject to this one base command: love. Without reserve. Without judgment. Without you and what you get from it being factored in.
But we live in a society of
me. Right? I read a really intriguing
article recently about how society–and especially faith and the church–has changed as mirrors grew better. When Paul wrote this letter, mirrors were made of polished bronze and could give only a hazy reflection–the result being that people didn’t
really know what they looked like. What they knew was what everyone
else looked like, and so their focus tended to remain on others–what they could see clearly–and on community. Self-identity in the early church was built around community-identity, which is why being excommunicated was the worst thing imaginable. But as mirrors became clearer, as people saw themselves clearly for the first time in history, there was a directly parallel change to where their emphasis turned–on themselves.
Imagine what Paul would say now, when we not only look in a mirror and see ourselves clearly, we have phones where we can spend half our day taking selfies. Our emphasis has turned fully on ourselves, and with it, agape love has suffered a severe decline in the society as a whole. Community doesn’t matter, in that if we get kicked out of one church, we can just go find another. The Church doesn’t have one body (in Protestantism anyway) it has thousands. And how do we pick the one we belong to? The one that suits us. Where we feel we belong.
It always goes back to us. Me.
But that’s all wrong. I also love how The Message translates verse 13, the last verse of this chapter. It says:
We have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
Why? Because that’s who God is. And it’s who He calls us to be–all of us, whether we’re a pastor or a teacher or an evangelist; whether we have wise counsel or can heal or distinguish between spirits. No matter our gift, no matter our function in the church body, this is–or should be–the undergirding.
We should be putting others before ourselves, and loving them with an all-out, selfless, indefatigable love. Because in that love, we find union with each other, and with God. And through that, we build a Church. We claim a resurrection body. And our faith has found completion.
I hope everyone has a blessed Resurrection Day, and that God whispers love into your hearts as you reflect on the ultimate expression of it.
by Roseanna White | Mar 2, 2017 | Bible Study, Thoughtful Thursdays
As I’ve begun this year’s 40 Days of Jesus reading for Lent, it’s been fun to begin with some of the most famous passages in the New Testament. The Gospel of John begins with that well known “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” and moved right forward to the first verse many of us memorized: “For God so loved the word that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Sometimes it’s a challenge to see new things in a book you’ve read so many times. But especially surrounding that well-known verse in chapter 3, I love sitting back and reminding myself of what it really means in context.
A few years ago we read John in church and went back and read the account of Moses and the Israelites that chapter 3 is referring to. The story is from when God had sent poisonous snakes into the camp as punishment, and the people were dying. They cried out to Moses for deliverance, and he put a bronze snake on a staff. “God will save you,” he told the people, “if you just look upon this staff and believe it.”
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| From Michelangelo’s work on the Sistine Chapel, we see a scene with the brazen serpent or Nehushtan |
As many as looked, were saved.
But not all looked. Many would rather die in their bitterness and anger toward God, or calling out to false idols, than to trust Him. To humble themselves before Him.
This is what Jesus said He was. Salvation to all who look and believe. So simple–so difficult for stubborn humanity to accept.
But we’re already bitten by that snake of sin. We’re already dying. It isn’t that He’s condemning us if we don’t accept Him–it’s that nature will simply take it’s course. The ball’s in our court. He already came and died and rose again for us. All we need to do is believe . . . but if we don’t, then that poison of sin will overtake us. We’ll die.
This is the simplicity and the complexity of the salvation story. Striking, every time we read it.
If you’ve been reading along, has anything from the first four chapters of John jumped out at you?
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.