Gained in Translation

Nov 26, 2011 | The Good Word

For years now, the New King James Version of the Bible has been the translation I’ve readily gone to. I admit that I didn’t do a ton of research about it, but I heard that it was a close word-for-word translation and so I leaned on it heavily. (Although I also sometimes look up a word in Greek or Hebrew when I want to make sure I understand something or I want to go deeper.)

Thanks to a new application on my phone, (rejoice with me — I now have a phone that doesn’t lose all its contacts if it runs out of battery life) I decided to start reading through the Bible in a different translation with the One-Year Bible reading plan. The plan is built around the New Living Translation, which I’ve never been particularly fond of because the language is so casual it almost feels disrespectful to me.

I admit it, I have a weird thing for words.

Anyway, I decided to try reading the Bible in the NLT thinking it might breathe some fresh life into the word for me, perhaps make me rethink what I understood a verse or passage to mean, maybe cause some new things to jump off the page at me.

Suddenly after just a few days, reading the Word is like ordering something at a restaurant you’ve been ordering for years, and finding it is still the thing you always ordered, but there is new flavor, an interesting new twist, a new taste to it.

I still go back to the NKJV, but I’m pausing and thinking through things I’d taken for granted for a long time because of this simple change.

This Scripture stood out to me yesterday, and caused me to take some extra time chewing up and savoring this bite as soon as it left my fork:

You have given me greater joy than those who have abundant harvests of grain and new wine. In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe. {Psalm 4: 7-8}

How beautiful is this reminder? That many people might have a lot of stuff, a lot of success, what looks like a lot of good fortune, but those of us who’ve put our trust in God can rejoice and be joyful just because of who He is. And if we let Him, He can bring us an unshakeable joy that comes from deep-seated contentment and will not swerve because of our circumstances.

People who call the Lord their God do not (and should not) need great wealth or fortune or fame to have lives that are marked by great joy.

We can get joy, straight from the source of everything good. And that’s Good News, to me.

How do you read the Word? What’s your favorite translation? And what’s your advice for hanging on to the joy of the Lord through the trials of life?

xCC

More Than Thankful

Nov 24, 2011 | The Good Word

A year ago we were right where we are right now, here in Atlanta for Thanksgiving. But things were different. It had been over a year since I’d been home. {And that was hard.} I was pregnant with our precious second son (we opened the envelope to find out his gender while we were here!). I was growing weary from a long World Cup year in South Africa, five long years away from family.

Are you ever afraid to admit the honest truth, even when it seems to be staring you in the face? There is so much excitement… joy… anticipation in answering a calling that brings you away from all things familiar, to faraway lands you know little of. But what does it look like… sound like… feel like when it’s time to go home? Seems a little anticlimactic in comparison. In some ways it was hard to be thankful when the picture became clear that our time in SA was coming to an end.

Staring at the closed door, not seeing the open window…

Our focus on thankfulness over the last holiday season wasn’t lost in translation. You can be thankful, even when things are hard. Thankfulness can frame life for you, even if the baby pees on your raisins.

Thankfulness isn’t the denial of reality when reality seems riddled with difficult circumstancs — it is rightly recognizing that life is full of gifts, even when life is hard.

The eight hour drive to Atlanta Tuesday seemed like a breeze compared with the 11 and 13 hour drives we did with the wee clan before we left SA. I was thankful.

It was easier to be thankful for the boys when they were sleeping than when they were awake.

But isn’t their fully awake, bright and cheerful life the greater gift?

Perhaps we need to learn what gifts are. The hard times of this past year are rightly seen as gifts. The challenging transition is a gift, too. The fruit of overcoming, pressing through, growing stronger, is the unwrapping of the gift of the trial.

The pilgrims gave thanks for the help of the Native Americans — thanks that they were going to survive. I wonder if at the feast they gave thanks for the trial, too.

Seems to me all of life — every breath — is a gift. Sometimes we just need to take pause long enough to look past the packaging.

 xCC

Last year’s week of {Thanks}giving posts starts right here if you want to have a look back!

More Than Enough

Nov 21, 2011 | The Good Word

We often go down to my Dad’s house on Sundays. The pace slows down just a little more there by the river. The Bear rides around the neighborhood with G-pa in the golf cart, the Tank sometimes naps in a quiet room, Sunday afternoon football is the background music for this kind of shin-dig.

Sometimes my Dad grills his famous chicken wings — I adore the spicy flavor that tingles my lips a little, and have to purposely decide to only eat however many I’ve put on my plate. And maybe two more. Sometimes I’m in the kitchen doing twice-stuffed potatoes. But on this particular evening, we decided we just wanted pancakes and bacon.

I was about to run out to the store for the necessary ingredients for the evening feast when my Dad stopped me. He put his hand in his pocket, flipped through the contents and handed me what seemed like an odd amount: $12.

He didn’t know exactly what I was going to pick up, but we all know cash is a very acceptable form of payment at the local Piggly Wiggly. With appreciation, I folded the bills and stuck them in my pocket and hopped in the car.

I quickly strolled through the aisles of the Pig, plastic red basket firmly in the crook of my arm, to one end of the store and back to the other because I’d passed the milk without realizing it. Once all the necessities were together in the basket I passed through a group speaking Spanish near the fruits with a Lo siento (I’m sorry) for cutting through their conversation and an Está bien (It’s okay) as they tried to move an empty cart out of the way.

At the checkout, I couldn’t help but smile as the cashier finished scanning the items and announced the total: $11.38.

My wallet was out and ready to pay, but instead I simply slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the cash I’d been handed a few minutes before.

I had more than enough. I left the Pig with change.

As I strolled back out to the parking lot with my goods in tow, I sighed and smiled at my patient Heavenly Father, who is good enough to remind me that He is more than enough.

That simple interaction with my Dad reminded me that my Heavenly Father is well able to provide for my every need.

He knows what I’ll need before I do.

He will give me what I need when I need it.

He is gracious and generous, and gives me more than enough — I have enough to share with others.

And isn’t that the way He does it?

He gives us more than enough, so that we can give out of our overflow, knowing that every good gift comes from Him, trusting that His more-than-enough provision will meet us when we need it.

My heart marveled at the simple beauty of it as I drove home from the store.

Once my Dad had returned from the golf cart adventure with the Bear in tow, I promptly fished the change out of my pocket and gave it back to him.

Since more than enough comes my way, Lord help me to give it back to you. It’s all yours.

I smiled as I told Dad he’d given me just the right amount.

He grinned and said, “I thought that’d be about right.”

xCC

Trust Ain’t No Bicycle

Nov 17, 2011 | The Good Word

There are lessons in life that we learn and don’t usually forget. Like riding a bicycle or tying your shoes, usually once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. But there are also lessons in life that we need reminding about. Like when it comes to learning a language, it’s use it or lose it. Perhaps those kind of lessons are stored in a different part of the brain, and the walls aren’t as sturdy in that section, so things quietly trickle out over time.

Unfortunately for me, Trusting God is a lesson that keeps storing in that section with the weak walls.

And if it’s a bicycle, I keep falling off.

Here we are back in North Carolina. The trees are tall, the talk is slow, the tea is sweet. The provisions of God that have brought us to the here and now are like the deep red leaves falling from the trees outside. Each one beautifully and gently descends with its own rhythm, its own perfect timing.

But don’t I want to be in control.

And know when each leaf will land. And where. And how.

Those eighteen boxes of ours are still waiting for their turn to cross the ocean on a cargo ship. Someone else has to be headed this way to make up a full container.

But like those leaves gently descending, we have what we need when we need it.

Baby clothes for the little one whose next stage of hand-me-downs is still boxed up on a foreign shore.

A rain coat for a Bear whose new Springbok Rugby coat waits patiently for its first wear.

So much through family, some also through friends, leaves from the trees, the gifts keep descending.

Next month we’ll probably move into my aunt’s old house. A provision that descended from heaven days after a friend ran the numbers and our mortgage options weren’t looking good.

But, whispers Fear, what about a crib, and what about a high chair? And what about the dozens of other things we’ll realize we need when we get there?

Will the leaves stop falling from the trees?

Jeremiah once said:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit. (Jer. 17: 8 – 9)

I fear when I don’t know how it will happen. How everything will be just fine. But then I stop to remember the One who is most trustworthy. The One who has repeatedly turned Mountains into Molehills in my life. The One who has consistently demonstrated that He’s a good Father, and that Good Fathers Keep their Promises.

And in that simple act of remembering, slowly I am pushing the pedals. Slowly finding my balance. Gently picking up the pace.

I remember He is good.

Maybe trust is like a bicycle. If it is, I need the training wheels of faith to keep me from falling off.

xCC