Salty Zebra

  A question was posed to me yesterday, but I didn’t have the chance to write about it. “In what areas of your life do you feel most tempted to prioritize worldly gains over God’s truths?” I spent a little time thinking about it and I was a little surprised by my results. The typical answer to a question like this I would think would have to do with money. Maybe it’s just because God has provided comfortably for us in this area, but this is not a big temptation for me. He taught me very early in my walk to trust Him with our finances. We were living paycheck to paycheck, putting a little on the credit card but paying it off within a few months. He challenged us to tithe. I didn’t see how we could set aside 10% of our income when we were spending all of it already, but we started small and within a year we were up to the 10% mark we had looked towards. From that point on, we not only had enough to make ends meet, we had enough to save for the future as well! God has showed up for ...

  Long, long, long ago God rescued two men from similar circumstances. Noah was a righteous man in an evil generation. Interestingly, because of the long lives at the time, he could have known his great-great-great-great-great grandfather. For whatever reason, I’m going to guess because of how God made him, Noah didn’t live in sin in the same way his contemporaries did. In fact, the world lived in such sin in his day that God decided to wipe it out completely except for Noah’s family. He had Noah build a large boat, it took him about 100 years. You’ve got to figure he took more than a little ribbing over that time, but he stuck with it. Then God sent a flood which covered the earth. We tell little kids about the story of Noah and the Ark and all the animals, but what we leave out is the horror of the family sitting on the inside hearing the pounding of the people wanting in as the waters rise and they realize that this crazy guy was actually right. Fast forward to a few years after...

  Therefore, dear friends, since you are waiting for these things, strive to be found at peace, without spot or blemish, when you come into his presence. And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom given to him,   2 Peter 3: 14-15 Would I say I’m at peace? That’s an interesting question. I deal with a lot of pain, but I’m ok with that. Would I like it to be gone? Absolutely! Does it affect my daily life? Definitely! Just because I’m ok with it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect me. So how can I say I’m ok with it? I feel like I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve learned techniques to tolerate it, breathing through it, stretching, elevating, heat, etc. I recognize that it affects my ability to think and I’ve come to accept that. On high pain days I still play games with my family, but I expect to lose by a large margin. I set aside more time for my Bible study or meal planning than I normally w...

  The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.   2 Peter 3: 9  We are an instant gratification society. As soon as we hear about something we want it, and we want it now. The average credit card debt per person in the US is $7,951 as of 2022. If you double that for the two adult household, that number is more like $15, 902 per family. That number was up about $1,000 per person from 2021. It seems that as the world opened up after Covid, people felt the need to get out and vacation in ways they couldn’t before, whether they could afford it or not. With an average interest rate of 14.39%, America is enslaved to debt. Debt is not what I’m writing about here though, that’s a sidebar. What I’m getting at is, we’re not good at waiting. The idea of saving up for something we’d like in the future is pretty foreign to us. So then we come t...

Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person's succumbs to, to that he is enslaved.   2 Peter 2: 19 This is a hard teaching. There are so many things in this world that are competing for our attention. Not all of them are bad. But if they are something that would capture our heart, something that would steal our devotion to our first love, Jesus, then they are, even if they look good. There are so many teachers out there who are telling us that we can have it all. Live the way of the world and love Jesus too. Be a Christian and do whatever our neighbor is doing. But that’s not what the Bible says, and the Bible needs to be our source of ultimate truth. Right here it tells us that whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. I hesitate to state an example here, but the way my brain works lately I don’t process conceptually well so an example it will have to be. Let’s take wine. Wine ...

Years ago, when my youngest son was a boy scout, we learned about orienteering. We would head out into a park or the woods and follow directions based on a compass to get us from point to point. Somewhere along the way, though, I learned that the compass we were using didn’t actually point north. No, the compass wasn’t broken and it didn’t need to be recalibrated. It’s just that magnetic north keeps shifting. In fact, they say it is moving by about 30 miles per year lately. These days it’s heading towards Siberia. While that doesn’t affect us much in the lower 48, in the northern latitudes these shifts reek havoc on navigation. So how do you find your way around when North keeps moving? You use True North. True North is determined by the North Pole which is a fixed place that does not change. The North Star, Polaris, also points to this direction. The hard part is, you won’t find a compass that points to true north, at least not consistently. You’ll have to navigate using a map, and ...

I am having a really hard day. This is my fifth day in a row of having a migraine, and today’s migraine brought nausea along with it – a rare but not unheard of companion. I am recovering from eye surgery that I had on Friday which was supposed to correct my double vision, incurred from brain surgery last year, but as of yet has only made it worse and the recovery involves a very sore, swollen eye and the feeling of all my eyelashes pointing inward. I am still also recovering from arm surgery earlier this year where I had 17 procedures done. My right arm and hand are still swollen and sore with limited mobility. My back and neck are a mass of knots and tight muscles, the likely cause of my recent migraines. There have definitely been some bright points, but yes, today is a really hard day.  - if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgement,   2 Peter 2: 9 Today’s verses, when rea...

 Every day one of the ladies in my Bible study group posts a song. Wednesday, she posted the song, “ Word of Life ” by Jeremy Camp. As I was listening to it, it was impressed upon me that in the beginning of John, Jesus is referred to as the Word, and it tells us how He was with God in the beginning and how everything was made through Him: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. The Word was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.   John 1:1-3 Then, in verse 14 it tells us about how Jesus became human and joined us on earth: Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory - the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.   John 1:14 Now, in today’s verses, Peter shares with us that the Bible did not come about by man’s imaginings but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit as...

For we did not follow cleverly concocted fables when we made known to you the power and return of our Lord Jesus Christ; no, we were eyewitnesses of his grandeur. For he received honor and glory from God the Father, when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory: "This is my dear Son, in whom I am delighted." When this voice was conveyed from heaven, we ourselves heard it, for we were with him on the holy mountain.   2Pe 1:16-18 NET Before a movie comes out, the studio releases a preview of coming attractions so that people will get excited and want to go see it. In fact, they hope that we will get so excited that we will talk to our friends about it and all go see it. They hope we will post on social media about how we are going to go see it, and often, we do! Thousands of years ago, Jesus walked the earth with His disciples. He told them often about the kingdom of heaven, but they never quite seemed to get it. So one day, Jesus gave a few of them a little previ...

Ok, guys. We’re going to get real today. This is a post I’ve avoided writing. Or maybe I have written it. Oh dear. That’s the issue. It’s about memory. I thought I was getting personal on Monday when I wrote about our marriage, but this is the inside of the inside of the inside of me. This is the stuff I don’t want to talk about with my husband, or my counselor, or even myself. Forget my upcoming surgery, this is the really scary stuff in my life. It started a long time ago, well before my brain surgeries. In fact, this was one of the symptoms that I hoped would be cured by them, but it wasn’t. The most dramatic incident took place just before we found out I had a tumor when we were in Disney World. As you can imagine, it’s a very over stimulating place and I struggled with that a lot. At a couple of points in the trip it hit a tipping point and I “blanked out” as my husband put it. In the middle of a sentence, I froze. I stopped talking, moving, anything. I stayed that way for a ful...

 For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and unproductive in your pursuit of knowing our Lord Jesus Christ more intimately.  2 Peter 1: 8 Did you ever wish that God would wave a magic wand over your life and change something? Maybe change you? The thing is, change like that isn’t lasting. It’s here today and gone tomorrow, and often with something worse in its place. God wants so much more for us. Change that lasts takes time and effort. It often goes through many stages. Our verse today mentions “if these things are really yours” and you might be wondering what “these things” are. In verses 5-7 Peter lays out a series of attributes or virtues that build upon one another. They are the “things” referred to in verse 8, and the ways by which we can avoid becoming ineffective and unproductive in our Christian walk. Faith > Excellence > Knowledge > Self-Control > Perseverance > Godliness ...

I can pray this because his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence.   2 Peter 1: 3 This seems strangely personal, but it’s what is on my heart so I’m going to go with it. Our relationship with God and the relationship of the Church to Christ has been likened to marriage in so very many places in the Bible. Hit me up if you need help finding them, but I’m way too wiped out to look them up and put them here right now. What keeps coming up for me this morning is how different my life and our marriage is now that I deeply and personally know my husband as compared to earlier in our relationship. In the early years, let’s face it even in the middle years of marriage we tended to bicker over little things. I took everything personally when most things weren’t even about me. Sometimes he was just hungry! I foolishly felt the need to “control” or “manage” him, a...

Through Silvanus, whom I know to be a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly, in order to encourage you and testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.   1 Peter 5: 12 I took a moment to look back over what God has shown me through the book of 1 Peter the last four weeks and I am even more impressed by Peter’s brevity as he summarizes his message in this verse. I have no idea how I would bring it all together to share with someone, so let’s go with his esteemed thoughts! First, he wrote in order to encourage. So many of these messages were encouraging to me! I was amazed and excited to learn that having a living hope means to have an active, powerful and efficacious joyful expectation of eternal salvation. I’m still in awe of how God knew all that would happen through the course of history, all the ways we would mess up the gift of His creation and sacrifice, and He did it anyways . And in the midst of struggling with so many changes in my physi...

And, after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him belongs the power forever, Amen. 1 Peter 5: 10-11 Someday I will look back on this and smile. I will see with restored vision, with eyes of grace, all that God has done in and through my life. I will be amazed at what I thought was tragedy that really was triumph. I will be restored to vitality and life beyond what I could ever hope for on earth. I will be the person He designed me to be, for the first time, and forever. God will confirm all the promises of His scripture, every last one, and show me how they were true for me. My heart will be fixed on Him once and for all, no longer distracted by the things of this world. I will be settled in the truth of His love, knowing without a doubt, never again hearing the whispers of deceit. One day I will no longer be plagued by weakness, for He will strengt...

  Be sober and alert. Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, is on the prowl looking for someone to devour. Resist him, strong in your faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are enduring the same kinds of suffering.   1 Peter 5: 8-9 Allow me to present you with a challenging truth. God created Satan (Eph 3:9, Col 1:16, Rev 4:11, John 1:1-3). Did He make a mistake? No. God doesn’t make mistakes. In fact, before God created Satan, He knew all that Satan would do. He knew about the coup that he would lead in heaven. He knew about all the trouble Satan would cause in creation and in the whole of human history. And God made him anyways. Why do you think He would do that? For our good, because God loves us so much. It's a bit confusing isn’t it? But, you see, we need an enemy. We need someone to poke and prod us or we will fall into complacency. We need someone to fight against, to watch out for, or we will fall asleep. In our modern...

And God will exalt you in due time, if you humble yourselves under his mighty hand by casting all your cares on him because he cares for you.   1 Peter 5: 6 - 7 One of the hardest things to admit in this life is that you need help. We want to think we can do it all ourselves. I’d be horribly embarrassed but would probably fall over laughing if a blooper reel was played of all the poorly thought-out ways of doing things myself was played. The chairs I perched on tip toe to reach something up high. The cardboard I inched under heavy objects so I could slide them across the floor. The one more job I did because it was right in front of me when my energy was gone two jobs ago. The most extreme example of this in my life was when my first child was born. I literally did not let go of that baby for three months. I was convinced that if I was not watching him at every moment he might not breathe. To be honest, I don’t know what I would have done had he stopped breathing, but than...

  Somehow we always seem to think that we are the main character in our story, that it’s all about us. So when tragedy strikes, the question arises, “Why me?” What have I done to cause or deserve this? We are taught in God’s Word that when we are following Christ, the enemy will come against us. So, the questions take a different bent, what am I doing for God that the enemy is coming against? Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in the degree that you have shared in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad.   1 Peter 4: 12-13 When it came to the landslide of health issues I had beginning in 2019, I initially thought it was all about me. Surely it had to do with the ministry I was running at my church, and maybe, initially, it did. But late that year my husband began working with the local homeless rescue mission...

  Just as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the varied grace of God. Whoever speaks, let it be with God's words. Whoever serves, do so with the strength that God supplies, so that in everything God will be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.   1 Peter 4: 10-11 Each of us is gifted in different ways, as many and varied as the abilities of God. Peter only gives two examples here, but there are a multitude. More than he could have ever known. And I believe that we have more than one gift typically. It could be that God so focuses a person that He only gives them one particular gift, but I have not encountered that. My husband, for example, is extraordinarily gifted with computer skills, leadership skills, wilderness survival skills, wisdom, and others. One of the ways I believe that God gifted me is through the ability to communicate my thoughts through writing. It’s alw...

  1 So, since Christ suffered in the flesh, you also arm yourselves with the same attitude, because the one who has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin, 2 in that he spends the rest of his time on earth concerned about the will of God and not human desires. 3 For the time that has passed was sufficient for you to do what the non-Christians desire. You lived then in debauchery, evil desires, drunkenness, carousing, drinking bouts, and wanton idolatries. 4 So they are astonished when you do not rush with them into the same flood of wickedness, and they vilify you. 5 They will face a reckoning before Jesus Christ who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 Now it was for this very purpose that the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that though they were judged in the flesh by human standards they may live spiritually by God's standards.   1Pe 4:1-6 NET What kind of life has Christ saved you from? What kind of life has Christ saved you for? If ...

  But set Christ apart as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess. Yet do it with courtesy and respect, keeping a good conscience, so that those who slander your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame when they accuse you.   1 Peter 3: 15-16 As you might know, A year ago I walked through a season of finding out I had a brain tumor and then having three surgeries for it. Really, I had five surgeries in all surrounding it, but three were brain surgeries. I remember a few people commenting on how we could have such great attitudes in the midst of all that was going on. To my shame, I don’t remember giving a good answer. I think I was caught by surprise because I didn’t see myself as doing particularly well. At best I mumbled something about how it was God and not me. Looking back, I have such great answers! Isn’t hindsight like that? Oh, how I wish I had told them about how Jesus was carrying me through....