Sharing Our Blessings
Posted by: Darla Walker on: February 24, 2009
Original Trinity Ring
Thank you for visiting the Trinity Praises Network blog. Feel free to share your blessings here!
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Cool Bible Study Tools on the web
Posted by: Darla Walker on: November 7, 2009
The other day I was thinking about the “faith”…”mustard seed” verse. I remembered the gist of it: If you have faith, even the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. But I couldn’t remember the exact wording.
I typed in www.biblegateway.com and then entered the words faith and mustard seed into the quick search box. BibleGateway.com to the rescue! I’ve copied and pasted my results here:
- Matthew 17:20
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:19-21 (in Context) Matthew 17 (Whole Chapter) - Luke 17:6
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
Luke 17:5-7 (in Context) Luke 17 (Whole Chapter)
Bingo! I got the verse that I was trying to recall (and Jesus said it so much better than my paraphrase) – PLUS I got a bonus verse about faith that can uproot a mulberry tree. Cool.
On Bible Gateway, you can do keyword searches, passage lookups, choose from a topical index – all in your choice among 20 different English versions of the Bible. Need a foreign translation? Choose from 40+ different languages. Want to read the whole Bible? There’s a plan for that. Would you like to add a Bible Gateway widget to your own website? There’s an app for that. You’ll find ebooks, dictionaries and commentaries. All good, all free.
Connect with over 60,000 (!) Bible Gateway fans at the facebook fan page at
www.facebook.com/pages/Bible-Gateway/96541497009
In the mood for book shopping? (One of my favorite pastimes.) Browse the new store at
http://store.biblegateway.com/
You’ll find even more cool tools at the shop – and, if you’re involved in Christian ministries, you may enjoy the affiliated community of interest at www.Gospel.com .
In case you’re wondering:
I am not affiliated with or paid in any way by Bible Gateway or its affiliated sites. It’s just one of my favorites, so I wanted to share its cool tools with you.
Enjoy!
The Kingdom Within
Posted by: Darla Walker on: September 12, 2009
The Kingdom of God is Within You
This is a picture of my screensaver. It says, “The kingdom of God is within you.” I’ve been thinking about what this mysterious saying of Jesus Christ really means to the Christian life.
In the scriptures, Jesus promises the kingdom of God, also called the kingdom of heaven, to those who follow His teachings.
About the teachings, Jesus said, “Do not think I’ve come to abolish the law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17.
The old commandments still count. Jesus says that if we break the old laws (the 10 commandments, for example) and if we encourage others to break them, we will be diminished. He says if we practice and teach the commandments to others, we will be greater for it. But, then, Jesus says that our righteousness should be greater, even, than that of the teachers of the law before we can “enter the kingdom”.
In these scriptures, Jesus helps us see that we must be changed in heart and soul. Following the law isn’t good enough. Jesus taught that it isn’t right to do something unkind, unloving or wrong in any sense, even if justified by the law.
10and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
11He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” – Matthew 12:10-12
To be in God’s kingdom, Jesus taught that we surrender selfish expressions of ourselves, including anger, unhealthy attachments & separations, irresponsible promises, defensiveness and contempt for others. Until these self-absorbed conditions are surrendered, our efforts to know and show God’s love to others are compromised by our bitter spirits.
When we yield our self-concerned focus to God’s protection and love, we are profoundly changed in a way that affects everyone around us for the good.
Jesus gave us the keys to the kingdom through his life and teaching. He implores believers to surrender to his message of love so that those who are seeking the kingdom of God will see the evidence of it in our lives and places of worship. And surrender, in this sense, doesn’t mean casting responsibility aside. It actually means taking responsibility for our intentions and how we act from them.
Surrendering old attitudes and selfish concerns – and taking responsibility for our motivations and intentions – may always seem like a work in progress, but we should attend to this inner work. Jesus did good works, and we are inspired to do the same, but Jesus never taught a list of good works as key to the kingdom. The kingdom isn’t a mysterious place that lets you in, when you compile enough brownie points, nor is it some great fortune of property or wealth or dominion over others to reward your good works.
20Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:20-21
Spiritual Stimulus Plan
Posted by: Darla Walker on: July 30, 2009
- In: Blessings | Encouragement | Sharing
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Do you ask yourself, lately, why everything has to be so hard?
I’ve been doing a lot of such questioning lately. One morning, in a moment of discouragement, I wailed to the heavens, “WHY?!!!!!” – And spooked my dog, Abby, with my loud outburst of bitter temper. She ran out of the room. I’ve been cross with my family. I’ve felt terrible and stupid – and I know the tense, toxic physical feelings of resentment are unhealthy.
But times are tough. Everything goes slower than you’d think, and everything is harder than you’d imagine.
It’s easy to feel down and discouraged. Many of us have experienced dramatic change in the downsizing movement of the moment. It’s easy to feel discouraged when slogging through tedious details on work we previously assigned to others to complete.
My morning devotionals are working on me to change my attitude. In the small details and the work we thought we were too good to do, maybe we’ll find some humility to temper our gargantuan pride and self-absorption.
…“4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” John 13:4-5
After the last supper, Jesus, knowing His hours were numbered, used the time to take up a servant’s task – in love and humility.
In Jesus’ day, when people walked everywhere, the feet would have been a rough, dirty mess. Foot-washing was the ultimate act of humble servitude. Picturing Jesus washing those dirty feet compels me to reconsider my high and mighty (loud) complaining.
My daily devotionals are giving me affirmation. Jesus’ presence is not some future event that is to be looked forward to, making today insignificant. Jesus’ presence fills every moment of the here and now, if we will turn from our petty trials of self-absorption and walk with Him – right now.
It’s time to “Get a move on!” with today, and “Walk the walk!” with Jesus, through the so-called drudgery and all.
On Remembering Michael Jackson
Posted by: Darla Walker on: July 8, 2009
- In: Giving | Prayer | Sharing
- 2 Comments
I didn’t expect to cry watching the Michael Jackson memorial on TV. As it began, a friend and I traded unkind stories about the weirder aspects of his celebrity life. I went back to work on my laptop and barely paid attention to the images on TV.
But when Mariah Carey started her cover of “I’ll Be There”, channeling the sweet voice of Michael Jackson, the boy, my tears poured out in a surprising torrent. In my mind’s eye, I saw that beautiful young boy singing and dancing and making everybody smile. We were all bowled over by such a big gift in such a sweet, little boy. I guess I cried because of what happened to that boy.
Michael could see what people loved about him, and he made the boy’s natural youthfulness a part of his act – and performance is really all that he knew. He bought a lifetime of treatments and alterations to remain young and beautiful and pure and gifted – just like we wanted. But he lost almost all of it to his obsession with packaging himself to profit from the media’s unblinking fascination with this young celebrity. Only the greatness of his gifts could survive his responses to our scrutiny of his celebrity.
Through the years, Michael Jackson tried to keep his promise – to always be there for us – and, he was the personification of what he thought we wanted him to be. Looking at 50 year old Michael Jackson is like looking into our celebrity cultural mirror. Michael, the boy, tried desperately to delay the onset of Michael, the man. It was – and still is – hard to take.
Despite all such mistakes and willfully stunted development, Michael Jackson achieved greatness by sharing the full measure of his God-given gifts. In that way, he’ll always “be there” for us.
That’s an outstanding achievement, but I hope his children will know life with a less narrow focus on celebrity and performance – and youth. I hope they experience the fuller spectrum of life, including growing up to realistic expectations.
For me, the most surprising moment of the service came at the end when Michael’s daughter, Paris, approached the microphone with her Aunt Janet Jackson. In a fragile voice, very reminiscent of her late father’s, she spoke, briefly and unscripted, of her loving Daddy, Michael Jackson. “Speak up, honey”, one of the Jacksons insisted, adjusting her mike…
Paris Jackson just wanted to share her feelings about her Daddy, the man, Michael Jackson, who loved his 3 children – the same Michael Jackson who gifted those less fortunate with much more than his musical genius. When the man, Michael Jackson, who lived quietly behind that performance mask, sang of making changes to the man in the mirror, he wasn’t talking about having more plastic surgery:
“As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin’ My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs…
I’m starting with the Man in
the Mirror
I’m Asking Him to Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place…
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change…”
Looking at his surgically carved face, it was hard to remember that Michael Jackson was just human – not all good and not all bad. We can take a lesson in how fully he shared the gifts God gave him – and how generously he shared the bounty that came from those shared gifts. The media will make much of the rest of it. But God forgives and so should we.
May God forgive us for our pop culture voyeurism and for our inclination to insult and injure those we elevate to its heights. I regret the gossip stories that I repeated from the media about Michael Jackson, never knowing any truth about them. I can take Michael up on his invitation to “take a look at yourself and then make a change”. Let’s just enjoy the music he left us.
May Michael Jackson, also known as the “King of Pop”, rest in peace with our heavenly Father, the King of Kings, our Lord of Lords in heaven, forever and ever. Amen.
July 4 Prayer for the Nation
Posted by: Darla Walker on: June 26, 2009
- In: Blessings | Holidays | Prayer | Uncategorized
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July 4th is a great time to give thanks for the freedom we often take for granted, as citizens of the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Note that the founders didn’t claim to have invented this free state of man. They gave credit to God. Battles were fought and lives were lost for our liberties, but this hard-won freedom was claimed as a return to the state that God created – the natural and unalienable state of all people.
We best honor the founders’ accomplishments when we humbly remember: We did not make ourselves.
We best celebrate our freedom with prayers and thanks to God:
“Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. “– Book of Common Prayer, The Collect for Independence Day
Memorial Day Prayers
Posted by: Darla Walker on: May 18, 2009
- In: Blessings | Holidays | Prayer | Sharing
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I love the long Memorial Day weekend, with all its outdoor parties and family get-togethers. But let’s not forget why it’s called “Memorial Day.” On this weekend, we can put aside all our differences and come together in prayer for those fallen and active in service to our country.
In WWII, my Grandmother’s brother, Lowell, volunteered for one last mission before returning home. He was shot down and killed on that mission. His brother, my Uncle John, survived the same war but was forever tormented by his younger brother’s fateful choice. Still another Uncle, Tommy, survived horrendous injuries in the war, but lost the battle to pain and alcoholism back home. Your family, too, may have lost loved ones in old or more recent wars. We have been well served, and many have paid a terrible price in that service.
Let’s come together to remember in prayer those who sacrificed that we may live in freedom:
Holy One, help us to remember that freedom is not free.
There are times when its cost is, indeed, dear.
Never let us forget those who paid so terrible a price
to ensure that freedom would be our legacy.
Though their names may fade with the passing of generations,
may we never forget what they have done.
Help us to be worthy of their sacrifice,
O God, help us to be worthy. Amen.
-UCC Worship Ways, 2008, Vol. 7, No.3
You may know someone serving actively in the military today. Young men in my family are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their service touches all our lives, and there is no doubt they suffer for us.
Let us come together and pray for those who serve for us today:
Almighty and eternal God,
those who take refuge in you will be glad
and forever will shout for joy.
Protect our soldiers as they discharge their duties.
Protect them with the shield of your strength
and keep them safe from all evil and harm.
May the power of your love enable them to return home in safety,
that with all who love them, they may ever praise you for your loving care.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
-Franciscan Friars, T.O.R.
This focus may seem a bit depressing or morbid at first, but it doesn’t work that way. To remember the sacrifices of others refreshes the spirit by turning us away from our own suffering and focusing us on what we have to be thankful for.
May you and your loved ones enjoy a refreshing Memorial Day weekend.
Mother Nurture
Posted by: Darla Walker on: April 24, 2009
- In: Encouragement | Giving | Holidays | Sharing
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Have you ever thought about what it would have been like to be the Mother of Jesus?
Mary was the Mother of the most precocious child ever on the planet. The Bible tells us that Jesus had a voracious appetite for the Scriptures, and He was a quick study, to say the least. Even though Mary knew that Jesus was extra special, she must have been surprised at how passionately and quickly He learned the Word.
I’ll bet that just about every child has a predisposition for something that surprises mom from time to time. It’s a hint of their destiny. When she was a child, my daughter, Chris, loved to go through books of house plans to show me her favorites or, even, to tell me how she would improve a plan. Her early interest and understanding astonished me at times. Chris went on to certify her skills in CAD drafting, which comes in handy to help support her own young family as she continues her college education. She’s not sure of her final degree focus yet. Will she settle on architecture? I’m proud of her accomplishments, but worry that she takes on too much.
The Bible tells us that Mary worried about Jesus, just like any other devoted mother, but she didn’t try to hold Jesus back from His call. She followed his ministry and stood by the cross as he died. Mary knew that God made Jesus to do God’s will. That’s a lesson that we can all apply.
Although in a different way, God made our children, too, each one with the purpose to do God’s will. Mary’s example shows us the way to nurture our children’s destiny. We can’t instill it in them. God has done that. But, as Mary did, we can love them, support them, contribute to their learning, encourage them, follow their progress and stand by them in times of hardship as well as blessing.
The example of Mary inspires us to let God’s love flow through us to our children, blessing them in perfect harmony with the beings God created and loves.
Good News! Jesus, Our Savior, rose up to live again!
Posted by: Darla Walker on: April 12, 2009
- In: Blessings | Encouragement | Holidays | Sharing
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He is risen!
The resurrection is critical to God’s plan. Through the resurrection, God showed the world that Jesus’ sacrifice was worthy payment for cleansing man’s sinful state. God confirmed Jesus’ divinity through the resurrection and ascension. God validated and authenticated Jesus’ teachings as “the way” to God.
Some people may consider my literal belief in the resurrection as optional or naïve. To be sure, I’ve done my share of wandering around in my beliefs. I’ve had my doubts about the resurrection. I’ll share a few thoughts about it here.
In reading the Bible stories of Holy Week, I have seen myself more in the boastful, self-reliant, unyielding attitudes of Simon Peter than in the story of Thomas’ doubt. Thomas’s doubt gripped him totally. He was absolutely sincere in it. Peter’s failures – and mine – are more self-created and self-delusional.
Like Peter, I can be so confident and haughty in my vision of “how the world works” that I don’t bother to (or maybe I fear to) inspect what role I’m playing versus what role God requires me to play. A question came to me about my doubt:
In my reluctance to embrace God’s omnipotence in the matter of Jesus’ resurrection, to whose will am I committed – to my own will or to God’s?
Given that I believe in all-powerful God who created everything in existence, why do I see God as limited in how He could:
o show His Son’s divinity;
o authenticate His sacrifice;
o show us that life continues after death;
o validate Jesus’ teaching; and,
o dramatize the event, so that people everywhere talk about it throughout the ages?
What could possibly limit the all powerful God in these matters?
God built the world and how it works. God may choose to “interrupt the regular program” to bring us a headline in the form of a miracle – whenever it suits God’s plan. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection would be one of those events that God would highlight for special attention. And God certainly did!
God’s power is not limited by or contained within the boundaries of my rational thinking – or by my precious beliefs, rational or not.
Just as for Peter, the awareness of my limitations and failures helps me focus on God’s direction – always a better match to my true abilities than the impossible roles taken on in my self-reliance. It’s simple.
All God requires of me in this matter is to witness what He has done and to rejoice that He has done it:
Jesus, Son of God, who died on the cross as our final Sacrificial Lamb, rose up from His tomb in defiance of death. Hallelujah!
He walked and taught, again, among His followers and blessed them with the Holy Spirit, before He was taken up to heaven! Praise Him! He lives!
Thanks to God for showing us The Way to our Salvation!
Hallelujah! He lives!
We honor our Lord with His prayer
Posted by: Darla Walker on: April 11, 2009
- In: Holidays | Prayer | Witnessing
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Peter's remorse
We can only imagine how Peter felt, having denied being Christ’s follower three times after Jesus was arrested. How crushing for him to recall that while the authorities accused his Lord, he stood by without defense of Him, offering only cowardly denials.
As added misery to the soul searching, all the disciples must have come to the dispiriting realization that they now had no leader. It’s unlikely they could yet see anything good coming from the tragedy of Jesus’ death.
Scattered to different places after Gethsemane, each alone and afraid, I imagine the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray was particularly potent for them on that day after He died.
In the same spirit as the disciples,
• recognizing that we all have dishonored Jesus’ sacrifice by our denials of Him, and,
• in the face of ample evidence of our callous disregard for His love,
Let us pray, as Jesus taught the disciples to pray:
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, Forever and ever.
Amen.
For Father’s Day
Posted by: Darla Walker on: May 27, 2009
Around Father’s Day, we often hear about the idealized father, the strong, loving head of the family – the rock – who provides for and protects his loved ones. Surveys prove the advantages of growing up with a father like that at home, and I know some fathers who live quite close to that ideal. They have a tough role to play, and they are good at it. Everyone around them benefits.
But many people don’t know a father’s love. And most fathers don’t come close to the ideal – just as most mothers don’t come close to our saintly ideals of motherhood. Our relationships are seldom perfect and often complicated.
I knew my father, but ours was not an idealized parent/child relationship. I loved my father, but I personally experienced some fall-out from his mistakes. Toward the end of his life, we were estranged. It wasn’t until his funeral that I came to think of him differently.
At the graveside service, people lined up to talk about the positive differences knowing my father had made in their lives. Former addicts talked about turning away from drugs. Street people told how they cleaned up and lived productive lives. It was an amazing parade of evidence that people change – my father included. I guess we aren’t always around to see the good, after being turned off by the bad.
On hearing of his death, I felt sad that it was too late to reconcile our relationship with any shared sense of forgiveness. But that graveside service showed that my father found the forgiveness he needed from his heavenly Father. That forgiveness was so powerful that my father wanted to share it with all those others whose messy lives, like his, would be changed for the better by experiencing it.
Knowing God the Father doesn’t make our earthly fathers unnecessary. Our fathers are meant to play beloved and essential roles in our lives. But when we are missing something important from our earthly families, we can turn to God the Father who will bless us with just what we need.
The example of how my father used God’s forgiveness to help others find it for themselves is a great gift. This Father’s Day, I am thankful to my heavenly Father for the gift of knowing my earthly father – mistakes and all – and for the lessons in grace and forgiveness that his life still is helping me to see.