Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-31-22

A guest message by my dear friend Leah Morgan.

When God did his best work, which admirers still paint and photograph to this day, it was summed up in these words – God said. God saw. God separated.

Over and over, for six days, He repeated these actions. He said, He saw, He separated. The separating was part of the process necessary for success and optimum function.

He separated light from darkness.
He separated the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.
He separated dry ground and land from waters and seas.
He separated day from night.
He separated birds in the sky from beasts in the sea.
He separated work from rest.

And He built within His creation the power of reproduction. Seeds that will produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came (Genesis 1:11). A chance for the cycle of life to continue.

And finally, God created the perfect counterpoint to man, and He crafted woman. More separation, as part of the perfect union. He separated Adam from his rib. He took something away to bring him something better. Then, God spoke to the couple about more separation. This union of turning two into one, God explains, is why a man separates from his parents (Genesis 2:24).

As if God said, “If a man is going to enjoy an ideal union with his wife, he needs to mimic My pattern of creation. Say; see; then separate. Say it. Speak up! Your words have power! Take the authority I’ve placed in your tongue. Then take a moment to sit back and look at what you’ve spoken to life. Enjoy it and appreciate it. Then… get out. Leave your parents. Your mom’s patterns, your dad’s habits, your family’s hang-ups. Separate. You will never live in a Garden that thrives if you’re not willing to separate from your parents. They no longer have dominion over you. If they do, then darkness and light, day and night, sky and sea have no boundaries. There’s a reason the sea needs to stay out of your back yard, and the night needs to get out of the afternoon sky. It’s the same reason your parents’ needs were relegated to their own homes with their own opinions.”

Seeds will produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came (Genesis 1:11). Sometimes, newly married seeds decide they don’t want to produce the fighting and temper tantrums and insecurities and manipulation of the plants and trees from which they came. They want a Garden built on trust and peace and kind words. They’d rather laugh and be silly than throw cruel insults around.

To newlyweds and longtime married couples: Garden it up! Say; see; and separate.

And then get naked. And stay naked. That’s Bible-talk for good marriage. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

God gave Adam and Eve the best chance for happiness when He created them without pockets. No place to hide anything. They were naked. And not embarrassed.

Our relationships begin to disintegrate when we start sewing pockets, places to hide things. We hide our past. Our spending. Our habits. Our wounds. Our hurt feelings. Men feel they can’t acknowledge having their feelings hurt; they can’t be naked about their feelings. That would make them… what? An Eve? So they hide that pain. Stuff their pockets full and make more pockets when they run out of room for all that they need to hide. But with the hiding comes the shame. And with the shame comes wide, wide gulfs of separation.

We are meant to be naked. Hiding nothing. Marriage is the place we keep it all out in the open. We don’t stuff our feelings, we don’t keep quiet about our opinions, we don’t tiptoe around bad moods. We don’t hide purchases and credit cards. We are naked and hide nothing. That’s the Garden ideal. A safe place for being real and honest and imperfect and beautiful and fun.

The Garden withers and good fruit begins to rot when we begin to dress up God’s ideal. He keeps it simple. True. Plain. Honest. No pretense. No sneaking around. No covering up. Owning it all. The knobby knees, the wobbly gait, and the imperfections. There is freedom in coming clean.

It is how God engages in relationship with us, written in Hebrews 4: 12,13: The WORD OF GOD is alive and powerful (SAY). It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow (SEPARATE). It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the one to whom we are accountable (SEE).

Our relationship with Jesus is healed in the Garden when we come out of hiding and stop being ashamed to be naked and seen by our Creator. I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. Remain in me and I will remain in you (John 15:1,2,4).

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Follow Leah’s beautiful, powerful, and inspired thoughts at leahcmorgan.com

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Click: When He Calls, I’ll Fly Away/I’ll Fly Away

1-24-22

I shared this message on Facebook this week, and now will here, with you. It has been nine years since my wife Nancy died. Heart and kidney transplants were supposed to give her another three to five years… but she lived 16 more years, mostly healthy till the very end.

She inspired people and devoted herself to a ministry serving transplant recipients, donors, and those on life’s edge, including families.

This week was Sanctity of Life Week also, capped by the March For Life in Washington DC. President Trump, like many of us, once was pro-abortion, or at least neutral; then became the only president personally to address the March. President Biden, like many Catholic friends, claims adherence to the church teachings but rejects them in practice.

Life – living, protecting, honoring life – ought be the concern of all. This should be axiomatic… but in this world it is not even automatic. The devil wants to destroy our lives; governments want to control our lives; but God gave us life and Jesus sacrificed His life that we might have life and life more abundant.

Some years ago I edited the magazine Rare Jewel. We published a Sanctity of Life theme issue, and I asked Nancy to write about her experience and perspective, facing death and cherishing life. Edited, I offer it here. She also endured, besides the heart and kidney transplants, diabetes, strokes, cancer, celiac disease, amputations, and other challenges. Her story in part follows:

I was diagnosed with heart disease two months after my 41st birthday. My three children were 15, 14, and 11 at the time.

I also learned that I had had a silent heart attack sometime the previous summer, and that I had coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure (CHF), meaning that the arteries supplying blood to my heart were narrowed. There was no blockage that surgery could correct by bypass.

In the first diagnoses, the doctors thought that with medicines my heart disease could be kept under control and in 10 years or so I would have to consider the prospect of a heart transplant.

But after two more heart attacks in 10 months—and not so “silent” these times—the doctors told me that I would not survive a fourth heart attack. This news came on my 42nd birthday. Within the month I was transferred from our local hospital to Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia and put on the transplant list for a heart and kidney.

Events moved quickly, and I really didn’t have much time to think about what was ahead. As a diabetic, I had assumed that at some time I might need a kidney transplant—I had never thought about needing a new heart! I also assumed that the whole process was like changing a battery: take out the old and put in the new.

Not quite. Because my doctors could not guarantee my survival at home for longer than two weeks, I had to stay in the hospital, with heart monitors attached to my chest, and an IV tube continuously feeding me medicines that kept my heart working at its maximum possible efficiency.

In the beginning of this process, I think most patients in my “group” of potential organ recipients were, like me, a bit naive. We didn’t know about some of the complications associated with the surgery. Strokes, blood clots causing the loss of limbs, and blindness were just some of the problems. Our group of approximately 16 patients was relatively healthy or at least stable, but every now and then reality would strike.

Without warning, people “coded” (heart stopping); sometimes they could not be revived. Other times those who had received transplanted organs would return to the hospital with rejection (the body trying to destroy the new organ).

We all know there are no guarantees in life, but no matter how young or old, we tend to take some things for granted. However, when hospitalized in a heart-failure unit, never knowing what the next minutes might bring, I developed a deeper sense of what was important to me.

I prayed for more time—time to be a mother to my children, for us to be together as a family. I cried out to God, How much longer? He answered in the words of I Peter 5:6,7: Humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.

And I learned to trust Him. Just as He was taking care of me, He would take care of my family. And each time I asked “How much longer?” He would remind me of a promise I made to Him that I would stay for as long as He wanted me to. And God gave me His total peace.

In all ways my hospital stay—18 weeks before organs became available; then three weeks after the operation, until I could go home—was a good experience. I came to know God in a more intimate way, to learn to trust Him and His ways, and to appreciate all that He has given me. I began praying for the other patients on the floor; first for those on their way to the ER, then weekly Bible studies, then prayer support groups. We started a family ministry that lasted more than seven years.

I have seen all three of my children grow up. Heather is a youth minister in Michigan; Ted is a television news producer [now in Washington DC] and Emily moved to Ireland after doing missions work [and has started her own business of American-style foods.] And, I have four beautiful grandchildren. I am very proud of them all.

At one time I did not have real hope, leaning on my own view of life. But as Psalm 119:50 says:

My comfort in my suffering was this: “Your promise preserves my life!”

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Click: I’ll Have a New Life / Everybody Will Be Happy Over There

1-17-22

We try to “get through” to people.

Sometimes we succeed, often we fail.

Other times we give up.

Do we really care, if we give up?

If we pray to God about something over and over, is that faith?

Or is praying once, and believing Him… is THAT faith?

There is no correct answer.

We should pray in the Spirit, and by the Spirit.

God will guide us.

Circumstances.

He already knows the burdens of your heart.

But He wants to hear from us.

He desires that we seek Him, earnestly and fervently.

That is why He instituted prayer.

A conversation.

Between friends.

When you want to “get through” to someone, is it because you care?

Does that person know you care?

Do YOU care… about whether you care?

If you want to “get through” to someone, is it worth your trouble?

Can you imagine being “too late”?

Will you be satisfied, then, by saying, “I didn’t have the chance…”?

Because we always DO have the chance.

However, we do not always TAKE the chance.

Love is taking that chance.

Again.

And again.

And all the “agains” you need.

You might say “I love you very much,” and mean it.

But never let it be said that you didn’t love well enough.

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Click: Sometimes I Cry

1-10-22

Everything Has Its Time.

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to harvest what is planted;

A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up;

A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away;

A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak;

A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace.

These words from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, a book of wonderful wisdom, are familiar to us. They describe life as it confronts us, but also are meant to instruct us as we confront life going forward. I believe it is not presumptuous to be guided by the dualities – attributed to King Solomon, describing God’s sovereignty and timing – and make inferences, or indeed additions and applications, for times such as we live in now.

Of course all the circumstances we face in life are implicit in those eight verses, yet we can ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, so we may discern dualities in the unique challenges facing believers today.

It is appropriate that we apply these modes at the turn of a New Year.

We face manifold crises, and for all their variety of evident origins and apparent differences, our crises are all spiritual at their sources. Spiritual problems never can be overcome, nor successfully even faced, except by spiritual means. Anything else is futile.

We will not list the crises in the church, the West, the nation, the culture, our homes, families, and selves – partly (and sadly) because they seem too many to list at this moment of our existence – but we all sense them. Whether on grand, civilization-wide, historical contexts; or in the deep recesses of our emotions, souls, and consciences. At most times in history, there have been present and impending crises, but I believe we now are at an unprecedented inflection-point.

In the manner of Solomon’s dualities, Christian patriots must, as never before in our lifetimes, be committed to peace… but be prepared to do battle.

There is a time to defend, and a time to attack.

A time to listen, and a time to require that others listen to us.

A time to practice tolerance, and a time to stop tolerating certain things.

A time to be “accepting,” and a time to be a righteous irritant.

A time to compromise, and a time to assert truth at all costs.

A time to hold opponents to the Truth… and hold our selves and our allies to it also.

Things are going to get worse in this world before they ever might get better. I have read ahead to the last chapters, and there is a happy ending to all this. But… there is tribulation ahead, first. Likely more persecution and grief.

Yet before joy triumphs we are not merely urged to resist, but we are commanded to fight. We must fight for our families and our future, for our souls and the faithful – for God.

Happy new year? Oh, yes. This is a glorious burden. Take heart. We are on the winning side, after all. And we should start acting like it! Realize something, that God must trust us exceedingly that we were born in a time such as this. Review all the strong and brave defenders of the past, Christians and patriots both, and how our challenges – our responsibilities – are more awesome than theirs.

Take heart, take hope.

At the moment, even with uncountable Bible promises overflowing my heart, and whispered inspirations from the Holy Spirit in my mind, I can be encouraged even by words of a secular song that rings in my ears –

Beyond the blue horizon is a beautiful day!

Goodbye to things that bore me; Joy is waiting for me!

I see a new horizon, my life has only begun! Beyond the blue horizon lies a rising sun!

I think King Solomon would approve! Do you?

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Click: Beyond the Blue Horizon