2 & 4

"Come, everyone! Clap your hands! Shout to God with joyful praise! (Ps. 47:1 NLT)"

My Grandfather loved praise and worship music. At the age of 81 he stood in the back of our little church and would clap his hands to every song that was played. Of course my grandfather had no rhythm and managed to clap completely off beat at all times. As hard as it may have been to be standing next to him, his intention was understood. In the Bible we find clapping mentioned 9 times (all old-testament). all of these occurrences are are some combination of the four hebrew verbs used to express the "striking" of something (macha, naka, saphak, taqa) and the Hebrew word for "hand" (kaf). Essesntially it means the striking of hands, or clapping. 5 of the 9 times we see these combinations, clapping has a negative connotation. These five places use the clapping of hands to show anger, scorn, and disgust (Job 27:23; 34:37, Lam. 2:15; Ezek. 25:6; Nahum 3:19). We still see this today when we make a bad choice or do something we might consider stupid, we clap our hands in disgust. The other four uses however, are meant to show joy, celebration, and praise (2 Kings 11:12; Ps. 47:1; 98:8; Isaiah 55:12). Two of these passages speak of nature giving praise by clapping it's hands through rivers and trees. How majestic is our God that "all the trees of the field will clap their hands" along with the rivers? If we remember in Luke, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees complaining about the disciples displaying joyful and loud behavior as Jesus cam into town. He said that if these people become silent then surely the stones will cry out in praise. The simple act of placing two hands together repeatedly has such a wide range of meaning. It is one of the first things we learn to do as babies and symbolically is the last moment before life's curtain call. Let our challenge this month be to realize that if we don't praise our Creator and Savior that the trees, rivers, mountains, and rocks will. So clap your hands; applaud God's majesty and greatness, even if it is out of rhythm like my grandfather, as long as it is from your heart.

Reading Between the Lines

Life can be stressful at times. Wow what a shocking revelation! (if this is a revelation to you please contact me and let me know how you do it) Life in America tends to high-paced. You work and you work and you work some more to provide the best for your family, for yourself, and for others. I know I fall victim to this mind set. I tend to not only light my candle on both ends but figure why not light it in the middle as well. We tend, as life gets busy and hectic, to begin to view life as one goal after another. If I can just make it through monday I will be fine. If I can just make it through mid-terms, finals, this paper, that project; life will get back to normal. What begins to happen is that lifestyle becomes normal. I know at times my lines become cups of coffee; if I can just make it to the next cup of coffee.

This happens in church life as well; if I can just make it through the Christmas production, the Easter production; if I can just make it to my next paycheck. We begin to get used to the lines we are determining our life by. One by one they add up. I know I begin to feel trapped, as if those determined lines are creating the bars in my jail cell.

We become so focused on each line we forget about the white space in the middle. We don't live for today and enjoy the blessings that are found in the space between the lines. We tend to do this as Christians as well. We are so focused on heaven we forget about the here and now. We become so wrapped up in the afterlife that we don't pay attention to life. Let me qualify this by saying that it's not inherently bad. As Christians we have a perfected eternity to look forward to but I fear that it becomes the only thing we focus on. We sing about it in church, we talk about it when the news is bleak, and we forget that we are called to make a difference here on earth. Our life is a gift and we can't forget that the time between the lines is just as important (if not more so) than the lines themselves. Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

So let us try our best to not define our days, weeks, months, and years by what's next on our agenda. Let's take the time to stop and smell the roses as they say. If the sparrows don't worry about the next meal and the flowers of the field don't care about the next church production then maybe we as Christians can live between the lines as well.

Historic Election

I am 26 years old. This is the third election I have had the privilege of participation. And what an election it turned out to be (not to mention it has seemingly taken 2 years worth of an election). More excitement and electricity have surrounded this election than any i can remember in my life. No matter who won the election, history was going to be made.
On one hand we had the ability to continue make strives towards racial reconciliation and on the other hand we continue to move past a woman's right to vote to gender equality. Many brave women and men have fought for either of the potential outcomes. We now live in a world where a mother can look at her daughter and honestly state that she can be anything she puts her mind to. Just the same, an African-American father can look at his son and with honestly make the same claim. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream has come to fruition. And I could not be more excited. Let us remember the letter to Galatia where Paul describes our new life in Christ Jesus. "for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:27-28)
I had made up my mind weeks before the election. I dug for information and voted early for the candidate that i felt would best represent my thoughts and beliefs. But as an American I made up my mind to support and pray for whichever candidate won. It is our American right to voice our opinion but it is also our duty to support our president. That doesn't mean we have to agree but we should be supportive. I think of McCain's concession speech where he urges both parties to come together in this time of need and I too hope that each one of us can look past politics and come together as a church and a nation.
We were a witness to history (and I'm not talking about LeBron)