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A New Meaning For Carpe Diem

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

He may be one of our greatest Christian writers ever, but I have to admit that I am late to the game when it comes to reading C.S. Lewis. Maybe that’s just God’s timing so that my Spirit and mind are actually prepared for the depths of what Lewis has to say.

At any rate, I have just begun “The Screwtape Letters,” a collection of correspondence between Screwtape, an Undersecretary of the Devil, and his nephew, Wormwood, who also happens to be new to the job of making sure the people he’s been assigned stay on the devil’s side instead of God’s.

Early on in the correspondence, Screwtape reminds Wormwood that “He [God] wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”

At first glance, the two parts of this statement may not seem that different, but actually they are worlds apart. If I am worried about what will happen to me, several bad consequences occur. First, I am centered on myself instead of paying attention to other people. Even if my worries about my future are about other people, making me think I am being altruistic, they are ultimately self-centered.

When I concentrate on future what-ifs, I am wasting my time as well as God’s. Didn’t Jesus tell us to concern ourselves only with this day, as it has enough problems of its own? Did He not also tell us not to worry because God takes care of us?

Thinking about what will happen to us usually also makes us focus on more materialistic things. Worry traps us into what we can see, feel and touch. The more we are drawn to the things of this world, the further away we are from God. “Where your treasure is,” Christ told us, “there will your heart be also.”

On the flipside, if we are concerned about what we do, we are smack dab in the middle of the only thing we truly have, which is this moment. To seize the day in this way, by thinking about our current actions, means we can be free to think outward.

Thinking outside ourselves means seeing the real needs of others and doing something about it. It means realizing the immediate effects of our actions. It means we have the opportunity to stop ourselves from sinning before we get caught up in it.

Doing instead of fretting is an even bigger challenge in our modern world. With telephones, television and the internet, we can go for ages without physically interacting with anyone. We can go our whole lives without meeting our neighbors face-to-face. And what we don’t actually see in person is very easy to push aside. Hasn’t watching television news footage our whole lives desensitized us to what we see on the screen, making it seem somehow not real?

In the moment, doing and interacting with our fellow wanderers, these are the times when we are on the same page with God. When we concentrate on what we are doing instead of worrying about what might be, we come the closest to loving others as God loves us.

Now, if I can just carpe diem God’s way every time I catch myself fretting instead of paying attention to what I am doing, I will already have learned a wonderful lesson from “The Screwtape Letters,” even though I’ve only just begun reading them.

Christian Living, Christianity, Faith, Living

What Does God Need From You?

Posted on May 6, 2012May 6, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Let’s face it. When it comes to our relationship with God, from His perspective it has to often seem like a one-way street, where we are constantly seen with our hands out, often calling to Him in times of great need when He may not have heard from us for so long, He doesn’t quite recognize us at first.

Of course, God always recognizes us, knows what we’re up to, and HAS A PLAN for whatever is happening in our lives, no matter how helpless we currently feel or how bleak our present outlook. In Bible class today, we discussed some of the really crisis moments different members had faced, moments so terrifying that they were forced to look to God in a complete realization of just how helpless we human beings are. In those moments, these people truly experience the all-encompassing power that is God.

More importantly, they learned a key lesson that they have taken away from their experiences: God is not through with them yet! He has plans for them in this world that they are yet to achieve. He has journeys for them for which that crisis may have been the first step or for which they have not yet taken a step at all.

As I listened to these shared stories, I was struck by the realization that God has a plan for us even when the crises in our lives are entirely of our own making. What if your crisis is spending more money than you can afford to pay or choosing to go out with someone you know your parents wouldn’t approve of, much less God? Now, because of those decisions, you live in fear of phone calls from debt collectors or have wound up married to a non-believer who may be abusive to you.

God has a plan for that. This fact does not mean that He wanted the bad things to happen to us. We live in a fallen world. Bad things are going to happen. But God has a plan for your life that includes bringing to the good something for you, for your family, or for others in this broken world from the ashes that are the destruction crisis may have punched into your life.

Does this mean that we might as well sin, or even live a sinful lifestyle and just expect God to make something good out of it? Of course not! Whenever Jesus reached out loving arms to sinners, He always loved the sinner but hated the sin. He never let them part from Him without warning them or entreating them to turn from the ways they knew were wrong.

The Bible offers us example after example of people who looked to God for their deliverance but who also kept doing what was in their power to do to move that deliverance along. The woman at the well knew that her current live-in was not her husband in God’s eyes and that she would have to end that relationship. The disciples fished. Paul made tents to earn his living as he spread the gospel. Instead of being greedy and holding out hands that have not tried to help themselves, these believers did what they could and looked to God to fill in all the gaps only He is able to fill.

I find this truth that God is working His plan for me even when it doesn’t feel like it a key to throwing away a lot of the anxieties I have put on myself when it comes to what I think He wants from me. First of all, whatever happens in my life is going to happen on God’s time, not mine. Secondly, I have made decisions in my life about what jobs to take, whom to marry, what kind of schooling to get, and I am not the only one living with those decisions. God is too. He knew what I was going to decide before I decided it, and He also knew how He was going to use those decisions in my life to do something good for Him, if I will only keep tuned in to His frequency.

So, what am I worrying about all the time? The little things, material things, things that have more to do with my pride in skills God gave me in the first place that I shouldn’t be taking pride in but giving to the glory of God. If I must put thought to something (and the thoughts shouldn’t be worrisome; Jesus told us not to worry), shouldn’t it be how I can love God more in my life, how I can reach out to other people in love, how I can line up my actions with the instructions so clearly laid out in God’s word?

What does God need from me? My faith in His truth, my devotion to His word, my love for Him and the other humans around me holding our hands out, crying out rightfully to the sky but sometimes forgetting the good those hands can do grounded back on earth in fellowship and as God’s helping hands for others around us.

What will God “work to the good” (Romans 8) for you this week? Can He get some of what He needs instead of being the One giving?

Christian Living, Living, Love, Uncategorized

Can You Be A Christian If You Aren’t A Conservationist?

Posted on April 28, 2012April 28, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

People like to point to the Bible a lot to claim dominion over just about anything–other peoples, their own actions, other countries–but one of the favorite things people like to claim dominion over is the planet itself: the grass that grows, the animals that graze, the seas that churn.

True, in Genesis, God puts the things He created into the care of the “ultimate” thing that He created, the thing closest to Himself because it was in His image, that is man. But when God placed something He took the time and care and JOY to create in our hands, do you really think He intended for us to look after it as if it were something we were to dominate instead of treat lovingly and tenderly?

How, after all, does God treat His ultimate creation? Does He do what He can to make our lives miserable, see that we’re unhealthy, put us last on His to-do list? The answer to these questions is a resounding NO. The evil that happens to man in this world is a result of evil having entered into it when we partook of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden. God is with us when bad things happen to help us, but He doesn’t bring them down upon our heads. Isn’t it in Timothy that we are told that, in fact, God is incapable of doing evil?

More importantly, if you doubt how God really treats what He has created, take a few moments to consider how much He loved us. He sent Christ, His only son, to live among us, experience our pain in person, and die a miserable, horrible death for us, because we are evil, not because of anything that Jesus Himself had done.

In Psalm 6:4, the psalmist cries out, “Turn, O Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.” Notice, the psalmist doesn’t claim any reason or value in and of him/herself to be due salvation, rather the psalmist knows that only because God loves him/her enough will the psalmist have a chance of being saved.

So, when God opened his arms and gave us the fruits of His labors, does anyone really think He wanted us to then abuse what He created? Or did He want us to treat what He put under our care the same way He has treated us, taken care of us? Shouldn’t true Christians strive to be good to everything God created and gave us “dominion” over because of the unfailing love we have learned from Christ, just as our only hope of salvation comes from Christ’s unfailing love for us?

Sometimes, when we are caught up in trying to help the poor and hurting among us, we forget about the living things around us that have no voice at all unless we give it to them. The Earth is the greatest gift we’ve been given next to our own salvation. If we each just do our part every day, those small gifts back will add up to a big difference.

Christian Living, Living, Self-Help

By the Water

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

There’s nothing more soothing than being near a running brook, hearing the burbling sounds of water rushing over silt and rock, the background noises of bluejays and crickets, the smells of wild grass and pure streams surrounding you in a cocoon of protection from the troubles and cares of your everyday world.

But we don’t have to be in the middle of the country to find our gurgling-brook moments. Even if you are stuck in the midst of the concrete jungle, nature finds a way. It may be a favorite park or a patch of grass used as a dog-run at your apartment building. It may be the butterfly you find perched on the windshield of your parked car. But nature is in the very air we breathe, and wherever there is nature, we have the most visible evidence of the existence of God. A deep, full breath of afternoon air can be the kind of break that reminds you what God means by a “peace that transcends understanding.”

Visualization is also a powerful gift that God has given us. Just closing our eyes in a quiet room can allow us to see, feel, hear and smell the perfect brook. We can see ourselves lying in the tall grass, our eyes closed, our breathing even and deep. If we can block out the worries of the world, our job responsibilities, our family’s needs, our perceived failings, we may just reach that inner part of ourselves where we can best hear the most real answer to our life’s questions, which is the answer that truly comes from God. Only if we are still will we truly hear Him.

We travel hundreds of miles and spend all kinds of money to take relaxing vacations, when our own mini-vacation is available every day. Take your moment to envision your brook, meditate on God, and listen to your inner voice today. The closer that voice is to the will of God, the happier you will be.

Christian Living, Christianity, Living

How Do You Cope?

Posted on April 19, 2012April 19, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

There are countless analyses on the book of Job that cover the key issues in the story, the importance of what Job’s friends say, what Job says about himself, and what God finally answers. But as I finished reading the book this week in my Bible study, I have to admit I felt a bit let down as I read the epilogue to the tale.

Why were you disappointed, you might say. After all, Job receives all that he lost and more for the rest of his life. He gets to understand that the questions he is asking of God are above his pay grade, issues to which a human mind cannot begin to perceive the true answers. He never learns that all his suffering is due to what amounts to a bet between God and Satan, but even if he had known, the answer to the additional questions of God that knowledge might illicit are really explained by the same reasoning God gives Job when He allows the persecuted man to stand up before his God.

No, my disappointment was more from a storyteller’s perspective because this story, which has kept me riveted to the Word for chapter after chapter, somehow leaves an important human perspective out in the end. After his encounter with the Almighty and the return of his worldly possessions, how did Job cope?

How we cope is what makes a good story. We get to see how Job copes with his initial disappointment. He mourns his losses, claims his righteousness, and demands his day in court before the Ultimate Judge.

But, how would you cope with the rest of your life after going through the tremendous loss and physical pain that Job experienced? Surely, Job loved his new children, but wouldn’t he always be torn up about the children he lost? Wouldn’t there always be whispers in the community, despite the testimony of Job’s friends, as to what had happened to Job and why?

God controls the sun, moon, and stars. He told the ocean how far to reach. He created and controls even the leviathan. But knowing that compared to God, we are as intelligent as humans consider a flea doesn’t necessarily make it easier to cope with the challenges that the world throws at us. It’s hard to give away to God the need to know the reason why. When God says it’s on a need to know basis and we don’t need to know, we are truly challenged to believe that He has numbered every hair on our heads–“whom shall we fear?”

Job didn’t worry. He believed, worshipped, and allowed God to give him the strength to carry on. There’s a lesson to learn here.

But I would still have loved to see inside Job’s head as he coped through the rest of his life. Coping through my own life could use all the Biblical examples it can get.

Christian Living, Christianity, Faith, Living

Is Your Truth THE Truth?

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Like a winding set of stairs (especially like the stairs in the “Harry Potter” films that change on a whim), when you define truth according to your own rules, by what you think is right or, even more deadly, what feels right, you start upon the journey of a very slippery slope that can only land you in the world of self-delusion.

Self-delusion is a favored land for popular culture. “I’m OK, you’re OK” is the slogan here. In popular culture, there are segments of society against which nothing bad should be said and other segments against which any barb is OK. This reality is nothing new. The Romans did an awesome job of persecuting Christians while allowing a variety of cultures to continue in religions which were in opposition to popular Roman thought.

But reality doesn’t equal truth. Think about this. Just because something IS does not make that something TRUE. When truth is actually TRUTH, it is also RIGHT. And who claims sovereignty over right? For us Christians, the answer to that question is easy–God. And the reference for TRUTH is not what we think or feel, but what is written in the Bible. But not just the parts of the Bible you’d like to pay attention to. The TRUTH comes from understanding the Bible in its totality.

I had a Sunday school teacher when I was young who explained that the Bible is so wonderful in part because it is at the same time simple enough for the most challenged of minds to understand and yet so complex that even a genius has difficulty deciphering all of it. Without a strong knowledge of the Bible, think how easy it would be for someone to pick and choose the parts they needed to convince you of something that is actually the opposite of what God really says. That is exactly how we have wound up in a world where more than half of marriages end in divorce and a shocking percentage of teenagers have already lost their virginity outside of wedlock.

Francine Rivers wrote a wonderful novel on just this premise: The Last Sin Eater. In this novel, a prominent individual convinces an entire community that a sacrifice for the dead other than the sacrifice Christ made for us all is needed for each departed soul. In the novel, the people have lost connection to the Bible and its TRUTH. It takes hearing the Word and the bravery of just a few characters to believe that Word to begin to heal that community and teach them who the last sin eater truly is.

Is your truth the TRUTH? Can you hold it up to the guidelines of unconditional love of God and your fellow humans that is laid out in the Holy Word? And how many things do you hold as true that aren’t actually in line with what the Bible says? Do you think you are too far gone to be redeemed, for example? God never says that in the Bible. In fact, Christ even accepted the confession of the robber who died on the cross with Him! Talk about getting in by the skin of one’s teeth.

Because TRUTH is more often than not more ugly than truth, it becomes so easy to fall into the popular culture sense of what is right. I’m ashamed to admit that, despite the time I spend studying the Bible and theology books and Christian fiction, I still spend more time watching television. How many lies have I let slip into my definition of truth from this bad habit? How many more so for those who only interact with popular culture without understanding the TRUTH that is God?

I’ve constructed a visual STOP sign in my mind for this week, and I plan to use it whenever I think, feel, or say anything that is truth as opposed to TRUTH. I challenge you to do the same.

God bless.

Christian Living, Christianity, Living

Find Your Joy

Posted on April 12, 2012April 12, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Christians trying to win the race in which we have been entered is a tough job. We are, after all, following in the footsteps of the Perfect One. How do we do it? It’s easy enough to write things like read your Bible, pray a lot, and surround yourself with those who also seek God’s truth and not our own, but it is definitely much harder to put these things into practice.

But as I write about these weighty matters, I think I forget a very crucial element in this important race. What about the gift of joy in our race to perfection? I once read that God is not so much interested in our happiness as our salvation. But once we have accepted salvation, we have every right to grasp the joy of that truth. In fact, some days it is only the joy of belief in Christ that keeps us from utter defeat.

This week, I’m reminded that in the midst of trying so hard to serve God well, we can often forget to embrace the joy that is ours to be had through our faith in Christ. Personally, I have many reasons to be joyful. I have been blessed by a loving family and wonderful friends. I have managed to survive the health and emotional challenges that have come my way. I have had just enough challenges in life to really understand just how wonderful a normal, non-challenged day truly is.

When I was growing up, sermons seemed to be a lot about the fire and brimstone consequences of not following God’s word. Today, some churches have teetered so far to the other end of the pendulum, that I wonder if they even remember the consequences part of following Jesus. Surely, there is some cuddly place in the middle where we can find space to celebrate God and fear Him at the same time. Fear of Him, after all, is the beginning of wisdom.

But, we are talking about joy in God. Living in the big city, getting close to nature is sometimes hard to do, and I think that nature is where we feel God best. At least, I find my greatest peace often comes on a bright day, with a baby blue sky and a cool breeze. I take a deep, wonderful breath, and I feel the power of the Almighty all around me. I know He is God then.

It’s a bit harder to take a deep breath crammed in line at the supermarket, surrounded by overworked people in a hurry just trying to survive in this hustle-bustle world. But it shouldn’t be. I should be joyful just about all the time. I have God in my life. He looks out for every hair on my head. Even the bad things that happen to me, He will work to the good. Does anything else really matter?

So, remember to smile today. Even if you don’t feel like it. Especially if you don’t feel like it. You’ll find that just in the very act of smiling, you’ll start feeling better. And smiles are contagious. Pass it around. Joy in Him is truly joy to the world.

Christian Living, Christianity, Living

No Lie

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

We can lie to our friends and to ourselves, but let’s not lie to each other.
How many times have you heard this pithy comeback when you’ve just said something that you wished were true, but that everyone knows is just not the case? How often have you really needed to hear that comeback because what you’ve just said is something you are trying to convince yourself is actually true, even though your subconscious is screaming at you that you just aren’t right?
Under perfect circumstances, our relationship with God is one in which we do not lie to each other. Of course, God’s ability to hold up His end of the relationship is a given for those who believe in His infallibility. God never lies, does what He says He will do, and takes His promises seriously.
Since God is omnipotent, it’s really silly on our part to try to lie to Him. In essence, when we lie to God, we are really only deceiving ourselves.
It’s silly of us, really. God makes it easy to be honest with Him. Christ serves as our intecessor. His death has made it possible for us to ask for forgiveness and actually receive it.
Think on Christ’s companions on this earth: wayward women, tax collectors, lowly fishermen. He even died on the cross alongside two criminals (and extended redemption even then). We don’t have to be squeaky clean to be accepted by Him. We just have to willingly step into His open arms.
But stepping in requires that we first step in truth. One of the main things Christ required from His followers was honesty. When Peter claimed his loyalty to Jesus, Christ told him he would deny Christ three times before the rooster crowed. When the woman at the well was honest enough to admit that her fifth relationship with a man was not a marriage, Christ acknowledged her truthfulness and encouraged her to discontinue her life of sin.
Not lying to God means truly repenting of our misdeeds. Repentance involves not only recognizing a sin, but also determining to do one’s best not to submit to the tempations of that sin again. When we repent in honesty, we don’t lie to each other.
Don’t know if you’re lying to yourself? The fact that a little voice in your head has asked you the question should be the first indicator that you need to stop to address the issue you may be lying to yourself about. Analyze it. Take it apart. Look at it as if you aren’t you, but somebody else, like God, for example. And see how well your truth stands up against the test of the Bible.
One of the easiest tests of a truth versus a lie is asking yourself whether what you are doing is an action that shows love to those around you. Loving God first and loving others as we want to be loved ourselves sums up the law, according to the One who best knows.
Let’s not lie to each other. Being a Christian is a wonderful gift that deserves our best thanks–a life lived striving to be as Christ-like as we possibly can be.

Christian Living, Living, Self-Help

Reality vs. Real

Posted on March 20, 2012March 20, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Did you ever consider that a lot of people would face life with fewer difficulties if they didn’t live as if their lives were some kind of reality TV show? In reality TV, life never has a dull moment. If someone isn’t throwing a party, somebody else is planning a trip for all her friends to an exotic location where interesting activities and fancy dinner parties abound. And then, if people are not laughing together, they are picking one person in the group to dislike and pick on, until everyone is talking on top of everyone else. Drama abounds. And all the boring parts, like the daily activities required to actually live, get edited out.
If we watch these reality glimpses of life that are actually produced and scripted almost as much as a television drama without understanding that what they show isn’t actually real, then we are left with an impression of life that is dangerously distorted. In a truly real world, people may often get together, but not on private planes or for thousand dollar dinners. The drama in reality TV does not reflect a life lived solving problems with more than just gut reactions and emotional responses. Drama is so readily available in that quasi-life because people are not grounded in God, but in material possessions, a desire to be noticed, and lots of alcohol.
But Hollywood, with all its special lighting and sound effects, has a way of making anything look desirable. Somehow, we slip into the illusion along with the players on the television screen that what they are portraying is a magical, fun-filled and fulfilling life. But real life, not reality life, doesn’t need the drama fed by alcohol or back-stabbing or putting money before everything else.
Real life is most fulfilling when it is centered on God’s principles, seeks to love others instead of finding fault with them and enjoys each day to its fullest potential, which means actually smelling the roses and remembering from Whom they come.
Too much of anything is not usually good. Watch HGTV all day, and you suddenly need to redecorate your house. Watch the Housewives, and you live a dull life with nothing interesting to do. But if you take the time to watch yourself instead, you may just discover there are many gifts from God each day, loving friends, and small actions you can take that might just make a big difference in somebody else’s life.
Reality may sometimes seem enticing, but give me real any day. The ever-changing nature of life itself is all the drama anyone needs. Forget the created drama that is the current television rage and embrace real life for the better. What a change!

Christian Living, Christianity, Living, Love

Tiny Steps Make Great Feats

Posted on March 11, 2012March 11, 2012 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

I have a friend who shares my proclivity to demand perfection of ourselves and the grand ability to beat ourselves up when we fall far short of the over-reaching goals we have set for ourselves. Lately, our conversations have circled around the concept of “magnificence.” In other words, we are trying to make it OK for ourselves that we are not going to be “magnificent.”
Then, I have to stop us. Whenever we make statements like this, we are shortchanging ourselves in so many ways. First, we are denying the truth behind what we define as magnificent. Of course, our definition is much too tied to the ways of this world. Because we haven’t made millions or written the country’s greatest novel, we are failures in our own eyes. That definition, in itself, though, is a failure in the eyes of God, who even when He came to earth in the form of man, did not seek stardom, even shunning the crowds that thronged toward Him as much as possible at times, asking those He had healed to keep the event to themselves.
This is when we are better served to remind ourselves that God’s version of magnificence is a tiny mustard seed, which, once planted, can be nurtured by the Spirit into a truly wonderful plant. Our actions aren’t the thing that make the end result, however. God is interested in the mustard seed size actions we take that, culminating together, create the final, magnificent result.
Maybe our small actions are simple things like holding open a door, smiling to those we meet, or stopping to help someone change a flat tire. Perhaps they are actions that are a little more involved like making a meal for someone who is ill, or cleaning house for someone who cannot do the job him/herself. Maybe the action is being privileged enough to be the first person to share her gospel experience with a person who has never had the opportunity to know Jesus.
When I look out my back window and watch the robins and cardinals and squirrels scampering in my backyard, a plethora of color and motion that reminds me what it means to be peacefully human, I sometimes think about the ways that God speaks to us in just as tiny a motion as the mustard seed He also requires. Hasn’t He more often been a whisper in the wind than earth-shattering thunder?
It’s hard to re-define success in a world surrounded by capitalistic ideals, but my friend and I keep on trying, holding each other accountable for the moments when we berate our mustard seed actions and long for superhero status. The prideful will be humbled, God warns us. We do our best each day to humble ourselves before we need to be humbled. Paying attention to our mustard seed actions is a good way to stay on the right side of humility. I’m getting older, and my knees can’t take another fall.