The Gift of Hunger

If you are a visitor from the Blog Carnival, I ask your forgiveness and indulgence for submitting this second post. I realized that I failed to share the more important truth I've learned about Treasure in recent days: We treasure what we desire more than what we have, and the two don't need to be mutually exclusive. (late edit:) Hunger makes the heart value more highly and yearn for more earnestly that which we treasure.

Image source: crossroadsinitiative.com

When I first met the Word of God in the Bible, I fell head-over-heels in love with the beauty of pure Truth. I hungrily read it at every opportunity in search for more Truth.

For four years I struggled to understand what my new Christian life should look like. When a cross country move and new church removed me from the little teaching I'd been getting, I became hungry for a teacher. No one was there for me. I'd open my Bible and beg God to help me understand it. I didn't recognize the Person of the Holy Spirit when He became my Teacher. I knew only that I hungered after His illumination like I might hunger for air after 60 seconds of holding my breath. I breathed Him in deeply and eagerly.

Seven years elapsed. I'd realized long before that time that I was hungry for discipleship—for mature Christians teaching and modeling Christianity to me. God brought me to a church strong in biblical principles where my eyes were opened to elemental lessons I'd missed by Bible-reading alone. I attended every service and meeting with a soul longing to be fed.

After five years I saw what was missing. Critical and judgmental spirits among legalists cursed and crushed the spirit of praise wherever it appeared without conformity to their standards. For another five years I praised God with exuberance only when away from them. My soul ached for the freedom to exalt Him. He honored my desire and brought our family to our present church, where worship ministry flourishes.

For three and a half years I've feasted on the fellowship of loving saints against a backdrop of solid biblical teaching. Our choir, orchestra, drama team, kids choir, and occasional dancers uplift my God and bring me to tears often.

My hunger has always been the opportunity to share God. The online community of blogging, Twitter, Facebook has satisfied it as never before.

Enough to quell the hunger pangs.

I understand now yet another reason God allowed the intense suffering of the last couple of years. It kept me in fellowship with Him so I might experience hunger for relief and be driven back to Him with new fervor.

And now, as life becomes calm, I once again need the gift of hunger.

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
~ Jesus, Matthew 6:21 (NKJV)

Comments, questions, and respectful disagreement are welcome. Reply to BuildingHisBody.com comments, or e-mail buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2011, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.

Dust and Rust Belt

If you are a visitor from the Blog Carnival, I ask your forgiveness for re-directing you to the second post I submitted, which is a more important read: The Gift of Hunger.

There's surely rust in Colorado somewhere, though I don't recall where I might have seen its corrosion when I was growing up. Back home, it was common for people to drive cars 20-25 years old. The only time I remember smelling mildew was when we opened a canvass tent that had been rolled up wet some earlier season. I thought a dry climate meant Phoenix, because it was the only out-of-state place I visited.

Life changed when I moved to the Rust Belt in 1990 and became acquainted with a damp climate. Needles in the sewing basket became rusty the first year. The next year, I found mushrooms growing in the carpet due to AC condensation of my well-maintained suburban apartment—on the second floor.

At present, our 12-year-old Caravan runs faithfully despite the visible rust which makes me wonder about invisible rust in the innards. The 2005 Savannah has needed AC repairs to corroded lines 4 out of the 6 years we've had it. I was up at 2 a.m. this morning to deal with a drip from freezing rain which penetrated the 5-year-old chimney flashing (high wind was partly to blame), and I was cutting away carpet and mopping up water which seeped through the basement floor middle (not wall) at 6 a.m.

Cold damp air doesn't seem much better for people. My daughter goes to the doctor tomorrow to follow up on her pneumonia. Our whole family has more vigor in sunny Colorado despite the altitude there. It seems that weak or scarce Great Lakes sun means lower physical energy and fewer people exercising. Michigan's population is near the top of the obesity charts, Colorado's near the bottom.

But regardless of where or how a person lives, it's only a matter of time before each of us succumbs to injury, illness, or infirmity and returns to dust—before the things we amass here become corroded.

When it comes right down to it, the entire earth is a Dust and Rust Belt. It's only a matter of location and years.

"Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal ..."
~ Matthew 6:20 (NKJV)

There are three things I have in this life which I can take with me when I leave this world: my family, my praise for my Lord Jesus, and the Word of God hidden in my heart.

The futile effort to maintain life in this world may try us. No matter—true treasure transcends time and distance, even the distance between eyes and heart.

"... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
~ Matthew 6:21 (NKJV)


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This post is part of a blog carnival hosted by Peter Pollock. You're invited to visit his site and see what others are saying about today's theme: Treasure.
Comments, questions, and respectful disagreement are welcome. Reply to BuildingHisBody.com comments, or e-mail buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2011, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.

The Other Book

Some of us are inclined to get weepy over a movie or book. There's a book I open nearly every day which can bring on something between moist eyes and a waterfall. The Bible does that for sure. But there's also the other book.

My prayer journal.

At some point, my prayer list got too long too pray through every day and began frustrating me. Then I heard the suggestion of organizing prayer lists by days of the week. Voilà! Intercession became manageable with a small divided binder.

The journal holds an assortment of lists. Who's on them?
• my husband and children
• family (people related by natural blood or Christ's blood)
• martyrs, ministries, missions (both organizations and individuals)
• friends who glorify God through the arts and writing (including online)
• the weak, the unsaved world, widows and orphans
• church and government authorities

(Each one of you is in there. Your name may appear for a specific reason. But I also pray for every person who visits this blog—even those looking for something else online—asking God to draw you closer to Himself through the words here.)

The single page tucked inside the cover is a priority list, where I pencil in a few people at a time with pressing needs. That list changes as situations do. Other lists are altered as prayers are answered, or when I release some situations to God in order to give attention to new ones.

But some people stay in this book ...

We met Rachel years ago when my then-teenage niece visited for a week and asked to bring a friend. I prayed that our home would minister to these two young women, both living vulnerable lives in unstable homes. At week's end, Rachel cried and said she didn't want to leave. She left our home but not my heart. I've been able to learn nothing more of her.

Charles was the soft-spoken police officer who slim-jimmed my locked car back in the 90's when I left the keys inside—something I've done only twice my whole life. I felt moved to ask this departing stranger how I might pray for him (another infrequent occurrence). In a broken voice, he told me his brother just committed suicide. God allowed me to bump into Charles again last spring, shortly before a sudden illness took his life. Only then did I take Charles off the list, with hope we meet again in answer to the many prayers said for him.

I don't know Zechariah's real name, or if he's even still alive. Our paths crossed for only a moment nearly two decades ago at an inner city church. A rough looking woman dragged the preschooler out of the sanctuary for making noise during the service, then threw him against a wall where he crumpled to the floor. I had a baby in my arms and stepped away to collect my husband, that we might intervene. Those few seconds were all it took for her and the tyke to vanish. I pray for him as Zechariah because it means "Remembrance of YHWH."

"As for Me, I am unable to forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on My palms."
~ Isaiah 49:16 (author)

Knowing that God answers prayer keeps me praying.

Comments, questions, and respectful disagreement are welcome. Reply to BuildingHisBody.com comments, or e-mail buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2011, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.

Question of the Week: What Motivates God?

"The Kiss"
V-J Day, August 14, 1945, Times Square

photo credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life Magazine

"We measure the worth of a treasure
by what we will gladly give up in order to have it."
~ John Piper

"Why did God create things the way He did, knowing what we'd turn into?"
~ Wendy Paine Miller

This could also be asked as, "Why did God put both Himself and us through all this grief?" Behind the above question, might we even infer The Question:

"Why does a good God allow suffering?"

An answer to that was offered in the post "Why Suffering?" So let's take another angle and answer, "Can we understand what motivates God?"


The remainder of my answer appears at Bullets & Butterflies.

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What questions do you have about Christianity or the Bible? You're invited to leave them in the comments below (anonymous questions welcome), or email buildingHisbody [plus] @ gmail.com.

© 2011 Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.

Seeing the Unseen, Hearing the Inaudible

Photo credit: Matt Reinbold

But [Stephen], being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God ... and said, "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"
~ Acts 7:55-56 (NKJV)

I think of our existence not altogether unlike a fish tank with a two-way mirror. The fish looks into the mirror and sees only self and the reflection of infinity. But the owner can stand nose to glass, seeing but unseen, aware of every movement the fish makes.

Wherever the Bible describes God's nearness, or the heavens being opened, there is the distinct impression that God stands right before our eyes in another dimension, ready to reveal Himself and speak to the one who calls upon Him.

Seek the LORD while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
~ Isaiah 55:6-11 (NKJV)

How does one come to recognize the voice of God except by listening for it? How can one hear His word unless one stands ready to heed it?

Our Sunday school children just heard yet again of Joshua and Jericho. Does the story become so familiar that we fail to see the incredible faith of acting out the irrational? Who wages war by marching silently around a city? Who wins a battle by shouting?

Who follows the inaudible word of an invisible God?

Only the one who believes He is near.

The God Who hears me, cares about me, and acts on my behalf is not long ago and faraway. He engages Himself in my life as if I am all He has to watch. He speaks in my ear as if His nose is as close as my cheek—as if His Spirit is within my heart.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD...
~ Isaiah 55:8 (NKJV)

He is sure to communicate the unexpected, for His thoughts cannot be guessed, but only revealed.

He is sure to ask the irrational, which can only be done by faith.

And He is sure to prosper me when He speaks, for His word shall not be wasted.

[My word] shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
~ Isaiah 55:8,11 (NKJV)

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This is the "rest of the story" connected to my testimony of gratitude posted at Everyday Testimonies.

Comments, questions, and respectful disagreement are welcome. Reply to BuildingHisBody.com comments, or e-mail buildingHisbody [plus] @gmail.com
Copyright 2011, Anne Lang Bundy, all rights reserved.