clean: 40 words in 40 days

This morning I unfurled clean, white sheets across our bed. The smell of laundry detergent mixed with slightly musty wafted up to my nostrils. The nearly wrinkle-free, spotless sheet reminded me of what it means to be forgiven.

On this day I’ve mused clean. What does it look like for God to pour His infinite love into a finite vessel. He removes my sin as far as the east is from the west. What if I loved that way? Lived that way?

A clean start. A clean bill of health. A clean slate. I am given these and more. 

For now a sleepy seven-year-old boy sleeps in that white haven. Tomorrow I will start over. Clean.

aroma: 40 words in 40 days

Few things are as primal to us humans as the sense of smell. 

Scientists and psychologists alike are fascinated by the link of smell to memory and emotion. Smells evoke memory faster and stronger than our other senses. Just the other day I smelled shampoo and went down memory lane to the summer camp of my childhood. I could recall every detail of that dark concrete block musty shower. 

While at the summer camp, I smelled the aroma of Christ. I asked the director, Heno Head, what was different about the people there. He shared the gospel with me. At 10 years of age, I bowed my knee to Christ. I wanted what they had. They were a pleasing aroma.

Several times the New Testament refers to a fragrant offering. In 2 Corinthians, believers are called the aroma of Christ and fragrance of life. The Greek word is linked all the way back to the sacrifices of the temple. When the priests offered up the lamb or other meat, the burning of it produced a smell like your best charcoal grills. I’ve not often thought about what smell would have been about the temple. 

When we were in Paris, we visited Notre Dame Cathedral. Priests walked the aisle with enormous censers. The fragrant smoke rising to the ceiling symbolized our prayers rising to heaven. 

My online lexicon states that aroma in the Greek is related to the ancient notion that God smells and is pleased with the odor of sacrifices. Is God pleased with my aroma? Because of Christ, yes. 

Today I will muse the aroma I am emitting. Is it the fragrance of life? Is it the smell of death? 

penitence: 40 words in 40 days

penitence |ˈpenitns|

noun

the action of feeling or showing sorrow and regret for having done wrong; repentance: a public display of penitence.

Unless you are a monk, penitence is not a popular word. Today we suffer from shame-phobias. It is easy to confuse penitence with shame. Even though we don’t hear enough about it, penitence is vital to a growing relationship with Christ.

Lent is to remind us of the place we occupy in Christ. Forgiven. Redeemed. To experience the fullness of this forgiveness, confession is key. To experience the richness of living as The Redeemed, penitence is paramount. 

On Ash Wednesday, we read a Penitential Litany:

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

The process looks like this. I sin. I feel guilt or shame. I ask for forgiveness and receive it. I apply the blood of Christ. I move forward in grace. 

I realize that my life is not marked by this process. I go weeks without confessing my sins to the Lord. And I sin every single day multiple times a day, sometimes a minute.

Reading those words on Ash Wednesday among the fellowship of believers moved me to thirst for more penitence in my life. 

mature: 40 words in 40 days

My team of Built2Last ladies won the tower building competition with that genius of architecture pictured above. Strange games: it's what we do at women's retreats! Women bring adorable bedding. We deck out in our cutest pj's. We get really cool gifts (Tervis tumblers).

Our theme is shepherding. There are fluffy white sheep (and a few black ones) everywhere. We are to disciple to maturity. I needed to be called to this. In my flow of abiding in the present moment, I resist buying trouble from tomorrow or even this afternoon. That's good but I can forget where I am going too. I needed to be reminded that God is growing me up. Hebrews says, "solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil."

Oh! I can train my senses in conjunction with the Holy Spirit. Oh! I can learn to discern good and evil. My life has been marked by a destructive naïveté. Lately My Shepherd has been saying OPEN YOUR EYES. And GROW UP. This naïveté is not working for you anymore. It's not fruitful nor productive.

He is calling me not be sluggish in my thinking. He is calling me to crave righteousness and solid spiritual food.

He is calling me to mature.

unexpected: 40 words in 40 days

We sat around a bouquet of tulips each plate adorned with hearts. Matthew returned home for the night to get his car tags renewed. Rarely are we together, all five of us, around the table.

Someone suggested we make a video like the ones we had been watching on YouTube. The song Harlem Shake has become a video viral craze. All kinds of folks claim 30 second stardom by uploading their version. The template 15 seconds of calm followed by 15 seconds of bedlam.

How would we film it? What would we wear? How would we dance? All these and more became the topic of our Valentine’s dinner. Our family is not prone to performance - at least not on camera. And so it began and grew in momentum - this crazy idea to do something we have never done before.

We sketched out a rough picture board. Everyone found costumes. Sam found a fake cigar. And we were up and running. Twenty minutes later our debut is posted on Facebook. I dug out my YouTube passwords. Voila! We are on the air.

What makes this so amusing is the level of surprise. Never in 22 years of marriage have I seen Matt McMurray dance on camera. Never. He has danced - just plain danced - maybe 20 times. Why did he acquiesce to this strange phenomena? I have no idea.

Control freaks everywhere shriek at the mention of “unexpected.” Yet we humans crave it. This blows my mind about God: you can never predict what He’s going to do. Unless He’s promised it in His Word, you cannot know what He will do. Now if He has promised it, it’s as good as done.

Delight flows from the unexpected. What will God do next that will blow my mind? What areas in your life need His touch of the unexpected?