Author Archives: dinahoverlien

Turning Tables

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I met with some friends this week to study Acts 12.

At the beginning of the chapter—

  • James had just been put to death with the sword
  • Peter was in prison and was presumably next
  • King Herod had all the power

By the end of the same chapter—

  • King Herod was dead
  • Peter was free
  • The Word of God increased and spread with power

In between there were a few miracles, some angelic activity, and lots of prayer. “Well, well, well, how the turntables.”*

My Bible study friends all agreed that it was remarkable for Peter to be sleeping soundly on the night before his execution. So soundly, in fact, that he dozed right through the sudden and dramatic entrance of an angel into his jail cell. A bright light flooded the space and the heavenly being burst in (Ta Da!!), but Peter snoozed on.

Angels typically induce a measure of terror when they come onto an earthly scene. Their first words to humans are usually “Fear not!” Angels are other-worldly beings, mighty warriors, awesome sights to behold.

In Peter’s prison cell, however, the angel didn’t say “Fear not!” Instead the heavenly being had to shake Peter awake and say “Get up!” Peter had to be told to get dressed and put on his shoes. As they were leaving, the angel reminded him to put on his coat.

Chains fell off with a clatter. Peter stumbled around the cell gathering his things. A celestial spotlight poured down, yet not one of the sixteen prison guards roused.

Some of us are in our own Acts 12 stories. We are in the beginning, where it looks bleak and hope is hard to muster. The good seems to be losing and the bad seems to have a powerful grip. What are we to do?

We do what they did in the middle of Acts 12. Peter rested while his friends prayed earnestly, gathering together for all-night prayer meetings. With their mustard-seed-size faith, they asked for angel intervention and a miraculous move of God.

By the end of our Acts 12 stories, we will be able to look back and see what God has done. Chains will be broken. Prison doors will be flung open. Justice will be served. Good will triumph and evil will be vanquished.

The tables will turn.

*Michael Scott on “The Office”

Pickling

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This week I’ll finish reading through the book of Genesis (see my Bible Reading Plan for 2024). The story of Joseph and his brothers gets me every time.

Joseph was 17 years old when his siblings sold him into slavery. He served in the house of Potipher, one of Pharaoh’s officials, until wrongfully accused of sexual assault. Although he was innocent, Joseph was thrown into prison and remained there for 10-12 years. He spent the entire decade of his 20s locked up in an Egyptian jail.

Last week, I considered the idea of being “pickled“—the process of transforming a cucumber into a pickle, which takes time. Those jars come out of the water-bath canner, the seals ping, and they are placed on the shelf. Experts agree the jars should remain unopened for at least 4-6 weeks to allow for the process to continue. In other words, cucs need to be locked up in prison for a time in order to be fully transformed.

I can relate to going through seasons when I felt like I was “on the shelf”—waiting for something, anything, to happen.

A wise monk once said, “You’ve bought into the cultural myth that when you’re waiting, you’re doing nothing. When you’re waiting, you’re not doing nothing. You’re doing the most important something there is. You’re allowing your soul to grow up. If you can’t wait, you can’t become what God created you to be.”*

All those years in an Egyptian prison, Joseph was being “pickled”—growing up and becoming what God created him to be. He couldn’t hurry the process, but also, he wasn’t doing nothing.

Are you in a season of waiting?
You can’t hurry the process.
But you aren’t doing nothing.
You are being transformed.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11

And that’s all I have to say about pickles.
(For now.)
(I don’t even like pickles.)

*When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd

Pickled

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PB loves pickles—sweet and dill, slices and spears, processed and refrigerated—so he is always on the lookout for a new pickle recipe. I found a good one for him.

The recipe comes from a guy named Nicander, a Greek poet, who jotted down his method for making pickles in 200 B.C.

“The vegetable should first be dipped in water and then baptized in vinegar.
The first step is temporary, the second produces a permanent change.”

Nicander used two different Greek words to differentiate between the two different steps.

“Bapto” = dip
“Baptizo” = immerse

“Bapto” a cucumber in water and what do you have?
A clean cucumber.
“Baptizo” a cucumber in vinegar and what do you have?
A transformed cucumber.
A pickle.

Thanks to a Greek poet who lived 200 years before Christ, we have a compelling picture of what being a Christian really means.

It’s not enough to dip our toes into belief, hanging onto our old identity, but cleaning up our act from time to time.

God wants us to soak in Him, be immersed in His love and mercy until, over time, it begins to produce a permanent change—transformation.

“For John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 1:5

John the Baptizer dipped people in the Jordan River for the forgiveness of their sins. Sooner or later, those people would have to come back, re-confess, and get re-dipped. The Holy Spirit works from the inside, “pickling” us, creating something new.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come.”
1 Cor. 5:17

A wise man once said:
“Once you’re a pickle,
you can’t go back to being a cucumber.”

I think there are more analogies hiding in here.
Let your thoughts steep a while and then share, please!

Golden

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Friday, April 19, 1974.
A skinny 14-year-old farm girl
met a handsome 16-year-old preacher’s son.
Fifty years ago.
Fifty golden years.

Five years, 4 months, and 6 days after that first meeting, the two stood before a church full of friends and family and sang to each other.

“Love’s grown deep inside of us
And time has made us sure
That the reason we stand here
Is because You’ve touched Your hand here.
The love we feel today is meant to be shared by two,
So we commit our love to You.”

Still do.

All the Books

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I’m a book girl. When I was in elementary school, I was taught “readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic.” As time went on, I majored in reading, liked writing, and got by in math. I can balance my checkbook and I can figure out which box of cereal is the best deal per ounce. But algebraic equations and geometry proofs were never my strong suit.

Reading is my jam.
I love going to libraries as much as PB likes going to Menards.
And that’s saying something.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library boasting a collection of more than 34.5 million books among 838 miles of shelves.* Amazon’s online store contains over 32.8 million published titles, with 7,500 new Kindle books published daily.**

So many books, so little time.
Sigh.

John, the beloved disciple, ended his masterpiece gospel with this thought:
“Jesus did many other things as well.
If every one of them were written down,
I suppose that even the whole world would not have room
for all the books that would be written.” John 21:25

34.5 million books? Small potatoes.
838 miles of shelves? A drop in the bucket.

Just think of all the things Jesus did that aren’t recorded in the gospels. What was life like for Jesus and His parents in Egypt during those years of hiding from King Herod? Was there any sibling rivalry between Jesus and His brothers? When He turned water into wine, what kind of wine was it? What did Jesus talk about with Moses and Elijah on the mountain of transfiguration? Did Jesus laugh out loud and do a dance when He rose from the dead?

So many questions. So much time.
👏👏👏👏

The whole world may not have room
for all the books that could be written about Jesus,
but the new heavens and new earth will.

You will find me in the heavenly library someday,
with all the time in the world to read all the books in the world.

*Statistic from http://www.loc.gov
** Statistic from http://www.wordsrated.com

Walking Away From God

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Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. 
Luke 24:13-18

In his Easter sermon, Pastor John Tyson (Church of the City) asked two questions about the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Q: Where are these people walking?
A: They are walking away from God.
Q: And where is God?
A: He is walking with them as they walk away from Him.

Have you ever felt like walking away?
Maybe not from God, but from His people, His mission, His calling?
Maybe not for forever, but for a while?
Maybe not from belief, but from hope?

If you’re feeling like that today, take heart my friend.
Jesus sees you.
Jesus hears you.
Jesus is walking right beside you.
Invite Him into the conversation.

“Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road?”
Luke 24:32

A Time to be Silent

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A very wise man once said,
“There is a time to be silent and a time to speak.”*
Wise words, indeed.

The story is told of Clement Attlee, who won the British General Election of 1945 in a landslide. Following the election, one of his opponents wrote him letter after letter, hounding Attlee with criticism on how he was doing his job. He attacked relentlessly, saying Attlee ought to resign. Finally, after having had enough of the constant harassment, Attlee wrote back saying, “A period of silence from you would now be most welcome.”**

There’s so much that can be said about Jesus’ final hours on earth. I’d love to compose finely crafted words that provide deeper understanding and appreciation for Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. But right now, words fall short. It is time to be silent.

It’s Holy Week.
Shhh.
Watch.
Listen.
Take it all in.
Absorb the bread and wine of Maundy Thursday.
Weep at the foot of the cross on Good Friday.
Wait patiently with the world on Holy Saturday.
Be still.

A period of silence from us right now might be most welcome.

*Ecclesiastes 3:7
**From Trusting God in the Darkness, by Christopher Ash

Photosynthesis

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Without trees, you’d be dead.
Within minutes of your first breath,
you’d get dizzy and nauseated and lose consciousness.
Poisonous gas would overtake you and kill you.
The whole human race would be extinct if it weren’t for trees.

Aren’t you thankful for them?

I love trees.
They have always been my favorite part of the natural world.
Now I know why.
They keep me alive.

In early elementary grades, the scientific process of photosynthesis is introduced.

The concept is expanded in advanced science classes,
but this is all you really need to know.
Tree leaves suck up the lethal carbon dioxide that humans exhale.
Sunlight turns the poison into life-giving oxygen that humans inhale.

Brilliant!

“The average human exhales about 2.3 pounds of carbon dioxide on an average day. Take this number and multiply by a population of 7 billion people, breathing away for 365.25 days per year, and you get an annual CO2 output of 2.94 billion tons.”*

Trees are hard workers.
They carry out their God-given purpose with no problem.
God bless them.

But beyond their scientific, ecological and atmospheric value,
trees do something else—they preach the gospel.

Jesus
hung on a tree,
soaked up my deadly sin,
poured out His light,
and transferred
His breath of life
into me.

I call this
photo-sin-thesis.

CO2 —> O2
Death —> Life
It’s the great exchange.
As we approach Holy Week,
let’s take our stand beneath the cross of Jesus
and breathe deep of the wonders of His redeeming love.

“Jesus offered Himself in exchange
for everyone held captive by sin,
to set them all free.”
1 Timothy 2:4-5

*Statistic from nrdc.org

Hours Before the Cross

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Join me for some thoughts as we approach Holy Week and the crucifixion of Christ, followed by Resurrection Sunday. I pray these short devotions will help us contemplate the hours that led to the cross.

Also airing on WCNP FM 89.5 at 8:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., and 5:30 p.m. (give or take a few minutes) and streaming at wcnpfm.org on Monday-Friday of this week and next week.

On the Dotted Line

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Recently I read that people have, on average, about 4000 weeks to live. I’m hoping for a few more than that, as 4000 weeks only gets me to about 77 years. I’m aiming for 4,680 weeks. You can do the math.

The idea intrigued me. What would 4000 weeks look like? I had to know, so I made a chart with each dot representing one week. Here’s what my life looks like in dots—each color marks a decade.

See those dark pink dots? Those are my 20s. Five hundred and twenty blue dots cover my 30s. My 40s are shown by yellow dots and purple dots represent my 50s. I’m well into my orange-dot-decade.

See that little heart around that green dot? That’s when PB and I got married. We’ve shared a lot of dots since then, and I’m so grateful.

Every Sunday I draw another tiny circle in another tiny square, step back, and take a long look at my life. I say, “Thank You Lord, for Your faithfulness to me over weeks, years, and decades.”

Then I look at the empty spaces yet to be filled in and say, “Lord, help me to be faithful to You until my dots run out.”

It occurred to me this morning that
truly, truly,
my dots will go on forever and ever.

“I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live,
even though he dies;
and whoever lives
and believes in me
wil never die.”
John 11:25