Tag Archives: Bible

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Harmony

Barker Family 1972

While growing up our family car rides always included singing. Our parents had been in a quartet in college and both my mother and father had beautiful singing voices. They could harmonize on any song – even while learning a new song – which still amazes me to this day. How do you harmonize to a melody you are hearing for the first time?!

So while we traveled we sang. The majority if our songs were hymns and gospel songs, although we sang lots of “camp fire” tunes and sing-a-longs. I always sang the melody – someone had to. My brothers can also harmonize, but I never developed that talent. I always stuck to the melody because that is what I heard in my head.

Our family traveled quite a bit when I was small. We went to South Dakota one summer where my father taught at the Wheaton College Science Station in the Black Hills. We lived in Boulder, Colorado the year I was in third grade because my father attended University of Colorado on a National Science Foundation Grant. Then we traveled to North Carolina beginning in 1958 in the summer where my father worked as a seasonal ranger for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When my parents bought a campground in North Carolina with another family from Wheaton, the Days, and we traveled back and forth to the mountains of North Carolina three times a year, staying each summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

I LOVED those trips in the car! We would sing for many miles taking turns to pick the songs we would sing. As my brothers and I got older we sang lots of folk songs – Peter, Paul, and Mary were my favorites. My father particularly enjoyed the Southern Gospel Songs and looking back, I realize now it was probably because of the harmony in those songs.

When I hear voices united in harmony it touches me deeply. There is something so special in hearing various voices singing different parts that join together to make harmony. The Cambridge dictionary defines harmony as – a pleasing combination of different parts, peaceful agreement between people, or the simultaneous sounding of musical notes to create a pleasant sound.

In music that “simultaneous sounding of musical notes to create a pleasant sound” is plainly evident to most people. Our ears cringe when we hear notes that don’t blend in – it is not pleasant! There are some people who are “tone deaf”. These individuals don’t hear notes blend or notice when they don’t. Generally speaking most of us recognize music that is in harmony and we also know when it is not.

I was pondering this after reading John 17 during our Bible study last week. This is the chapter where Jesus prays for us before he is arrested and eventually crucified. Jesus prays for us – verse 20 says –

20 “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.

Jesus is praying that we will be ONE – in harmony – why? Jesus knows he will be crucified, buried, and rise again ultimately returning to his Father in heaven. Yet in the midst of this agony he faces, Jesus prays for us – ” All who will ever believe in me”.

Jesus wants us to be ONE – in harmony – so that the world will believe God sent Jesus. Just as we know if notes are sung or played in harmony – the world recognizes if the followers of Jesus are living in harmony. The part of the definition of harmony that fits here is – peaceful agreement between people. When the world sees the Body of Christ – the Church – attacking one another – fusing and fighting over doctrine or Biblical interpretations it is obvious there is no harmony. Why would the world believe that God sent Jesus to save the world when his children can’t live in harmony and love one another?

These are divisive times in our world, our country, our community, and even in families. The Lord has convicted me with my own thoughts and actions. How I am responding to his desire that I live in harmony with my brothers and sisters in Christ? Do I let issues drive a wedge between me and my fellow Christians? Do I let anything bring disharmony into my family?

Jesus prayed that we would be ONE as he and the Father are ONE.

I can be a part of answering Jesus’ prayer by living in harmony with my family and my sisters and brothers in Christ.

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Guard Your Heart

“Oh, that just breaks my heart!”

Lately I have found myself saying this frequently. When I hear about a young person ending their life, acts of racial hatred, persecution of fellow believers for their faith in Jesus, these all touch me to the core and break my heart. There is so much hurt and suffering in the world.

Our Women’s Community Bible Study has been studying “The Son of David: Seeing Jesus in the Historical Books” by Nancy Guthrie. One of the themes repeated in these Old Testament historical books is the pattern of ignoring God’s commandments and the resulting suffering that ensues. One of the ladies in our community Bible study said “where minds focus, hearts follow”. That struck me profoundly. When my mind strays from my first love – Jesus – my heart follows resulting in actions that are sin. As a follower of Jesus I must guard my heart.

That leads to the question – where is my mind focusing?

I can fill my mind with all sorts of things, some good, some clearly bad, and some things that start out good yet become bad as those things take up too much space. If I think of my mind as a container of thoughts and images, the content is constantly changing as I go through any given day. Thoughts and images are crowded out as new ones are taken in. As I make choices about what I focus on – consciously or unconsciously – my mind is forming ideas, attitudes, responses that ALL affect the disposition of my heart.

If I spend significant time on social media, podcasts, streaming news sites, on-line shopping sites, etc. – all these will fill my mind and take up room that could be filled with spiritually beneficial thoughts and images.

Paul cautions us in Philippians 4: 8-9 ESV

8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

Paul is encouraging the Christians in Philippi and says – “One final thing”… so it must be important! Paul asks us to “fix our minds” – focus – on what is

TRUE

HONORABLE

RIGHT

PURE

LOVELY

ADMIRABLE

EXCELLENT

WORTHY OF PRAISE

I found the Amplified Bible translation of verse 8 especially meaningful.

8 Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].

How practical! For instance if my thoughts are “right and confirmed by God’s Word” then I can trust those thoughts. If I am anxious and worried, then I am certainly not focusing on things that are “lovely and bring peace”. Yet what about the reality of suffering the loss of a loved one, the pain of illness or accident? Am I expected to ignore the reality of that suffering? No.

Paul says in II Corinthians 10:4

4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Paul challenges us here to “take every thought captive to obey Christ”. The suffering is real and suffering is the result of living in a broken and fallen world. Yet the TRUTH of God’s plan to redeem everything, including each of us, gives us hope. Until we eventually experience that full redemption our responsibility is to align our thoughts with God’s word to guard our hearts and minds.

This is the challenge for each of us moment by moment – day by day. As my friend said – “where our minds focus our hearts will follow.” My heart will still break at the suffering all around me. Yet when I fix my mind on God’s sovereignty and implant His Word in my mind, my heart will follow.

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Fresh Eyes

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I enjoy putting puzzles together in the winter. When I can’t be outside – or don’t want to be outside because it is too cold – I will get out our folding table, sit by the fire and work on a puzzle. This picture shows my most recent effort. It is a 3-D puzzle of a castle in Germany. It was a real challenge and I found myself staying up later than my normal bedtime “just to find one more piece”. HA! Twenty or thirty minutes later I was still looking for that elusive piece.

Something interesting occurred. I found that often the next day I would look at that puzzle and quickly see the piece I had fruitlessly been searching for the night before. There it was! Right before my eyes!

The difference was that I began looking with “fresh eyes” the next day.

That realization caused me to reflect on other situations where I felt “stuck”. I thought about some problem that I seemed to return to over and over again and seem unable to resolve. Would applying “fresh eyes” to that situation help me find the “missing piece?”

Our lives at times appear to be “puzzles”. We are not sure what God is leading us to do or what direction He wants us to take. So we may stare at the situation, determining to see more clearly. We focus on the problem, pray, read scripture, pray some more – yet we just can’t seem to find the answer we are looking for.

King David cries out to God for an answer in Psalm 22 –

1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

The next verses show a shift in David’s viewpoint. Instead of looking at his situation, he turns to God with fresh eyes. He then says –

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
5 They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

God is God – we are not. God’s ways are not our ways. David was able to shift his eyes from his distress to the holiness of God. To be fair, we don’t hear from David that he was immediately delivered from his problem, or that that there was a resolution that pleased David. Yet David’s willingness to acknowledge God’s holiness and God’s faithfulness in the past gave him fresh eyes to see his present situation.

I must admit that I have been discouraged by the divisiveness of the political situation all around us. I have needed “fresh eyes” to acknowledge that God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, sees what is going on, and will show Himself faithful to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time.

I don’t need to keep looking for that missing piece – God has it in His hand ready to place it just where it belongs.