The Birth Marks....: the butterfly effect....

The Birth Marks....: the butterfly effect....: From wikipedia... "The butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a nonlin...

the butterfly effect....

From wikipedia...

"The butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where a small change at one place in a nonlinear system can result in large differences to a later state. The name of the effect, coined by Edward Lorenz, is derived from the theoretical example of a hurricane's formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.

Although the butterfly effect may appear to be an esoteric and unlikely behavior, it is exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill may roll into any of several valleys fully depending on slight differences in initial position.

Note that the butterfly does not cause a tornado. The flap of the wings is a part of the initial conditions; one set of conditions leads to a tornado while the other set of conditions doesn't. It's possible that the set of conditions without the butterfly flapping its wings is the set that leads to a tornado"

I was sitting in church a few Sunday’s past.  It was Easter.  The teaching was on “the butterfly effect”.

The basic premise was this:  A single act can have impact around the world no matter how small or insignificant it may seem.  How appropriate this was for a day when we celebrate what Jesus did for us when he died on the cross and rose again with the keys to hell and the grave.  Some may deny this, some may scoff at it, but that single course of action changed everything... I know it did for me.

As I listened, I began to have another idea... a different path on the original theory of the butterfly effect.  And I began to ponder my own personal “butterfly effect”.  

Here it is.

Think about what happens for a butterfly to become a butterfly.  First it’s just a caterpillar... a grub.  Eating and crawling never knowing that inside there is a butterfly waiting to emerge.  Then one day, for no apparent reason other to us watching this completely content little grub finds a spot on a tree branch and confines itself into a cramped little chrysalis and stays put.  This little grub does not fight the place of stillness or tries to make things happen faster while there.  

We looking from the outside must also leave it alone.  Let the change occur without interference... and let’s be honest and all say how difficult that is to watch and not interfere.... 

Then, one day that same little grub begins to struggle and move and make it’s way out.  Not even knowing what it has become until it takes flight.  The very action of struggle bringing strength and energy into those small fragile wings.  

We on the outside must once again NOT interfere in the process.  We can encourage, speak life, but we have to leave our hands off the journey. Helping hands, even with the best intentions, can destroy the strength of a newly emerging butterfly.  

Do you see where I am going with this?  Can you follow the parable?

For the butterfly and for us it is this-

Are we willing to take the risk of letting to of one life so that we can begin to step out into another.. Being a caterpillar is nice.. you get to eat all the nice green leaves that you can find, but it will never satisfy that inner longing to fly.  

Are we willing to step out of our comfort zone and into a place of utter stillness so that change happen... 

Are we willing to be still so that we can be transformed... This is a hard one for me personally.  Giving up control and letting the change happen even when I can’t see it (cause it’s on the inside).... Waiting on a promise...trusting.... 

ugh... I know you get that one....

Can we let the change happen without trying to control it... in ourselves and in those around us...

We will go through the struggle that comes with transformation from one season into another.....

All of these little decisions are not really so insignificant when you think about the butterfly effect.  Because how we choose to act not only causes an impact on our own journey forward, but on those around us.  Whether an action is from a place of love or a place of fear, it will cause an impact.

And once we have emerged into that new place, will we embrace the change and go with it...

Will we embrace the sound of the butterfly’s wings?  Will we respond to the call of transformation?  

Do we even believe it is possible.......

I choose in this moment to believe.  I choose to step out into that place, find a branch and be still. To let that great big love of God does the work He has in His heart for me. 

The other thing that this Pastor said was this:  “Jesus was serious about transformation”.  

He was serious enough to do it Himself.....  

We don’t know what kind of tornado each of our wings can cause to happen.  We also need to remember that our struggle, our transformation can actually change things......

And.. 

How we believe in others...speak into their place of transformation is just as important as our own.  Encourage them.  Empower them.  Carry belief in them.... 

But keep your hands off their chrysalis. We will all emerge just as we are meant to. 


Strong and ready to fly.  

Clearing out the ground cover.... new growth is waiting

There are place in all of us where the ground cover has taken over.  Places where new growth can’t happen until we have taken the time, gotten dirty with the digging and cleared out the ground cover that is holding the new growth trapped underneath.

It was a beautiful fall day in Oregon and I had the day off work. In my frond yard was a flower bed just waiting to be liberated from the ground cover that had taken over during the previous tenets stay.  The soil was rich and ready and easily turnable at this time of year.  There were flowers to be planted, bulbs to be separated so that they could be re-energized during the cold Oregon winter.

Bulbs do that you know....  

While everything else lays dormant under the blanket of winter - those bulbs - they get re-energized by it.  They multiply and gain strength... (but that’s another blog for another day...)

I had been planning this “project” for a while.  Picture where things would go and things would be shifted.  Imagining it all in my dreams - gardeners do that -  We dream our gardens into being.  (again... another blog for another day...)

I got my music out with my tapes and an old “boom box” and set it on my porch next to my new cordless phone.  No high tech iphones or cd players/ipods in those days, just good ole’ fashion land lines and boom boxes. 

I waved to my neighbor (who was also my Pastor at the time) as he left for work that morning.  

I would start at one corner and not stop until I was on the other side. The roses.  They needed trimming down to the ground and at 6 feet tall that would mean a great deal of trimming.  Every year they had come back stronger, as if to say “No matter how much you trim, we will just come back, stronger and more brilliant than before so bring it on!”  Again, I knew that in trimming them back they would be protected from the harshness of the Oregon winter.  Their roots would be stimulated to grow and become stronger.  After the roses came the primary flower beds and that’s where I really got into the dirt and the digging.  It was a glorious day of pulling out those things that had taken over.  To get the ground open and ready for what was coming.  To reclaim my garden, my flower bed and in doing so create a place for new growth to happen.  

By the time my Pastor arrived home from work, I was on the other side of the flower bed almost finish with my own work.  Covered in dirt and gloriously content with what I had accomplished.  He smiled at me and said, “We have got to get you married...”,  I replied, “I would be doing the same thing...” We both laughed.  

By that evening I had cleared out the ground cover, separated and shifted all the bulbs that were underground, added new ones to fill in other spots, and created new places for all of the beautiful Peonies that had become so overcrowded that they could no longer grow properly.  

I could see spring.  I could see my yard in full bloom.  It wasn’t happening yet, but now I knew that it could.  All we (my flowers and I) needed to do was wait. Let winter do it’s work and pass.  Spring would come and with it an explosion of life and color in all of those new places that had been created.  

I look at my own life right now and I see those places where the great big love of God has been clearing out ground cover and shifting things around.  Like my own flower bed, I have not always felt “prepared” for the digging that has happened.  I could hear the music as it played over the garden of my heart and mind.  I could feel the hands pulling and tugging at the roots of things. 

I imagine that God has been dreaming of this garden of His in my heart and life for a very long time.  He sees the full bloom.  He knows where the perfect spots are and where the ground cover has taken over and needs to be removed.  He sees the roses.  Those glorious tall places that still need to be trimmed each year to get the roots stirred up and regenerated. 

The question is never “Will God’s Loving hand come in and tend my garden?”  He is always present and always ready. 

The true question is this... “Will I open my heart and let Him?” 

This is my prayer today.  

 Lord teach my heart to be ready. Strengthen me when I am tender with the clearing and remind me of your vision for me. Clear out the things that hinder the new explosion of color coming with Spring. Bring the life - the new growth -  that Your love has been dreaming for me.  

My Beloved is in His garden... Will I go out to meet Him?  

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse,

A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Your plants are an orchard of Pomegranates

With pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spikenard, Calamus and cinnamon, 

With all trees of frankincense, Myrrh and aloes,

With all the chief spices -

A fountain of living water, and streams from Lebanon.

Awake, O north wind and come, O south!

Blow upon my garden.  That it’s spices may flow out.

Let my Beloved come to His garden and eat of its pleasant fruit.

Song of Songs 4:12-16

Gideon's heart...

Philippians 1:6

Being confident in this very thing, 

that He who has begun a good work in you 

will complete it 

until the day of Jesus Christ”

I am thinking that if I were a man, I would want my name to be Gideon... 

I can totally relate to that place of "Lord, if it's really you..."  That thought can happen at any moment of any day. 

I awaken with a dream that seems far too big for anything that I could accomplish and wonder how God will do that through me.  I catch a vision during the day that takes my breath away and feel the promise of God’s heart on it for me. In that same breath I feel my own inner voices struggle to receive the promise.  “Who am I that the Love of God would lavish me with something so kind?”  God says, “Go there!” and my first thought is “Wow....where will the provision come from?”  

We all have our Gideon Moments.  God’s plan for him was so big....God’s picture of us is always bigger than our own.  Can you imagine yourself in that moment with Gideon on that threshing floor?  

But remember, most of the hero’s of the bible thought smaller than God did. They all had to lean into the promise and take that step of faith to believe in something greater than themselves.  They all had to believe in a love that saw them from a different perspective than their own.  They had to face those same voices we all face.  Those voices that come from within, and from those around that say, “it couldn’t be done”... “you are too small”...  “you are not enough”.... “you have too much baggage”...  “you have made too many mistakes”... “Your God doesn’t exist anymore”...  

Doubt will always try to be louder than faith.... but doubt will just never have the same incredible endurance that love has.  Love and hope will always outlast doubt and fear.  God’s love and His vision of us has been here from the beginning and it will always make a way for us to see who we are and help us do what He has called us to do.  His patience with us is without compare and His kindness to encourage and confirm it to us time and time again is without limit.  He has been around for all eternity and has truly seen it all from beginning to end.  There are no surprises that will shock Him or cause Him to shift course from what His love has planned for us.  

Watch what God’s love did for our friend Gideon.  God doesn’t see like we do.  He doesn’t give a promise and not have a plan for its completion.  God will not tease us with a dream.  That is not His love.  

Like Gideon, I know that My God will always answer. He will always send His love in a promise, a word of encouragement, sometimes a whisper that I have to lean into His heart to hear... but He will also way speak if I will listen.  Gideon saw a threshing floor where he could hide... God saw a mighty man who could lead an army.  Gideon saw an army that was so small... God saw what His enemies falling under their feet.  Gideon needed to be encouraged and God was ready to do just that. Gideon only had 300.  God wanted that way so that all would know it was Him. He wanted to erase the doubt in Gideon’s heart and raise him up in a way that only God can. 

There is no other God Like my God. None.... And there is nothing that is impossible for His love to bring to completion.   

My God can take what seems hopeless and WAY too small to be considered viable to the "wise and learned" and do something totally amazing and beyond any wisdom that the world can understand.

It may take time.  It may require of us the courage and willingness to lean in and believe in a new way. 

Where are those places, those dreams, those promises for your heart.  Lean in and listen to the promise.  Let your heart take hold and do what seems impossible.  

Dream big.  Our dreams or God’s reality for us.  Help us to see like you see God!  Help us to see the big dream that Your Love dreams for us.  

“With the vision

And make it plan on tablets

That he may run who reads it.

For the vision is yet for an appointed time; 

But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

Because it will surely come, 

it will not tarry”

Habakkuk 2: 2-3

My friend Jonathon Helser has a song that is so perfect.  Have a listen and be encouraged.

The Beauty of Dry Bones.....

 “And so He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?

” So I answered, “O Lord, You know.”

Ezekiel 37: 3

This morning I awoke with a memory on my heart and a promise on my lips.  I had forgotten to speak that promise over my heart with my words and in my actions.  

I was reminded by the love of my Jesus, that I had let my “inner bones” become dry....

I remembered a short hiking trip I had while with a friend in Eastern Oregon.  The high desert is an amazing place, but I had forgotten that “high” means less air and desert does not mean desolate, but it does mean hot...  I had also forgotten the beauty of in the high desert of Oregon.  I am so thankful that I have the pictures to remind me.

I am so glad that in this moment the great big love of God is breathing into my bones and putting life back into those places where I am struggling.  

We all have them.  Places that are dry.  Places that feel dead.  Emotions that have been shut down or shut away, buried deep below the surface.  Things that stop us from truly pursuing wholeness in heart, mind, spirit and body.  

I have them.  Places of disappointment with myself, with others, and with the Lord.  Places where I have given up because it’s too hard, because it’s not working when I do try, or because I just don’t believe it’s possible anymore.  

This is the honest truth that we all have in our hearts about the dry places.  And I must be willing to be honest about the conditions of my own dry bones, before I can truly see the grace of Love and feel His breath on them. 

The reality is that I have let those places become dry.  I have let those places of disappointment and hardness grow and become more real than the actual truth of who I am in Love’s eyes.  It’s just easier to let the dry stay dry once it’s become that way.  Hauling water to the desert isn’t easy and breathing takes much greater effort in the high desert of my own heart.

And yet....  (I love the “and yet’s” that happen because of Jesus)

He is relentless in His love.  He will not forever let me stay this way.  Even in the smallest of places.  His heart.. His love finds the places that are dry and reminds me of the life that is still there.  He knows the truth about my heart and my desert places.. my dry bones.  And with His breath, He changes things. 

See the life in the twisting places.

He reminds my heart of this truth... That even in the desert there is life.  And IF I am willing to walk through that desert and see it’s beauty, I will also see the life in that dry place rise up.  I will see those bones become as new, with the breath of Love’s belief in them.  

Look for the dry bones around you....

Where are you places?  What are the deserts that you need to walk through and let Love show you life?  And who is in your path today that needs belief and life spoken into them?  

Look around and see the life in the dry bones.  Don’t be afraid of the desert or the high altitude of it.  Let Love take us there and let love bring breath and life to the dormant places that are waiting........

Threads......

"Though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."  

Ecclesiastes 4:12 NIV

I stood in the back of the room and listen to the stories as they were told.  Spoken from a man who had gathered them through the years.  I could see the lives in those stories likes threads weaving together.  

Making something that lasts beyond the now.  

Making something that takes what was and bringing it into our story now.

Giving it new life that takes those threads into the future, to be woven into the story yet to be written.

Our lives, our stories, they are like a thread that is woven.  We take our thread and we weave it with another’s along the way.  What this man was doing was joining our threads.  Giving us more strength and a greater sense of the bigger story that had been written.  

The verse above is so clear.  When a thread stands alone it is at greater risk of breaking.  Anyone who has worked with thread knows that doubling it up makes it stronger.  When sewing, knitting or making a piece of netting... the higher the thread-count, the stronger thread.  

Families, friendships, communities... all of them require us to weave our threads with another.  All of them are stronger when we do.  The stories are richer - even while sometimes painful.  We take our stories and we tell them as this man did.  We add them to those around us and make them stronger in the telling.  Our lives - our stories - may have to become more open to do so, but in the telling our own thread becomes stronger as well.

There is another verse:

“And they have overcome (conquered) him by means of the blood of the Lamb and by the utterance of their testimony, for they did not love and cling to life even when faced with death.” 

Revelation 12:11 Amplified Bible

How is your thread be woven into the lives of those around you?  What are you adding to the bigger picture?  Are you willing to tell your story and bring who you are along side the story of others?

May we all be willing to listen and not just hear the thread of others without judgment and without trying to change their stories as they tell it.  May we all be willing tell our stories and combine our threads with those in our family, our friends and our community.

There was a thread started one morning in a manger.  A thread that wound it’s way through our lives and into eternity.  A thread that when added to our own, becomes unbreakable.  Today we celebrate that story, that life, that thread.  

Celebrate the day.  Share your story.  Combine your thread with that of another.  See how much stronger your heart is in doing so.  

“Clear the Mechanism”.....

I was so frustrated!  I had been on the phone for more than 30 minutes and had yet to speak with someone who could clear up my internet issues.  

For several weeks my computer had been having glitches.  I thought it was just my computer becoming old or that I had a virus.  With my lack of technical skills, it could be any number of things that I had no way of fixing on my own.  Then when I was watching a movie marathon via my Roku device, it went on the blink as well.  I couldn’t get a signal.... My wireless device was working, but the signal wasn’t coming through to the device.  

So began my phone journey and my conversation with the Lord about confusion, clarity and crowded airwaves.......

In the end I was able to reach a young man in Arizona about my wireless problems.  In 10 minutes he was able not only to fix the problem, but he taught me how to fix it myself should it happen again.  You see my wireless network had become “overcrowded” with other networks.  There were too many other systems trying to overlap with mine and too much noise.  What we did to fix it was to go into the modem itself and actually move away from the noise and onto a clear connection.  The result was immediate and amazing.  

Turns out there was just too much "noise" in the air around the connection and it needed to find a new channel....

I wanted to twirl!  It was as if the airwaves around my connection could breathe again!

I posted this on my facebook page several days before:

"Clear the mechanism"...... (From "For the love of the Game")
One of my favorite lines from a movie. Where are there places in our lives where the noise of words/thoughts (our own and others) is distracting us from focusing on the target?
I want to be like that catcher sitting at the plate, helping others to focus on the goal and and releasing them to pitch as their intuition tells them.

hmmmm.... sounds like a blog is in the works.”

Little did I know that I just needed to wait a few days for the rest of the blog to become clear.

As the that pitcher steps onto the mound, all he can hear are the voices of the crowd.  They are cheering, they are shouting insults... they are declaring their own judgements and expectations at him.  Some are even people that he may know who have their own views about how he should pitch.  They may believe that he should sit out... he is too old.... he has too many “issues”....  There are the Managers who want to tell him what they thing he should be doing.  All of this coming at the same time at this pitcher who just wants to send the ball across the plate as best he can.  

Does this sound familiar?  How many times in my own life have I had a moment of decision where I was trying to focus and couldn’t because of all the voices?  How often has that happened for you?

Jesus stepped away to be with His Father.  David strengthened Himself in the Lord.

We all need those times when we are able to shut down the noise that surrounds us and really listen to our own heart’s direction.  When we need to remove the other voices that surround us.  Even the well meaning ones...  Those voices of that want to fix the problem for us....tell us what they think is best...  warn us....  or judge the situation from their story and not ours.  

Even our own voice can get in the way and cause noise....  Cause distraction because of fear, expectation the desire to succeed and belong.

Shutting out the noise puts us into a place where we can truly listen to and focus on the target... which should always be love.  Changing our channel and moving away from the noise means that we will sometimes seemingly have to walk alone...  

But......  In that moment when the noise is cleared away and our hearts, minds spirits are in a place where we can truly listen.....

Then we can hear in the stillness, the voice that not only can direct us forward, but guides us along the way and gives us strength to make the choices....... throw the ball....... fix our connections...... have conversations that need to happen.....  change our direction......move forward even when others tell us differently......

There is a voice that holds the truth about that moment.  Knows who we are and speaks into our lives with only love.........

I want to find that voice and listen to it today.  I want to still my heart, my mind and the voices around me and listen.  I want to become a one who encourages those around me to still the noise - even when the noise is me - and listen.  

Find that place today for yourself.  Find that cleft in the rock... that stillness on the mound and truly listen.