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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

You Do It

Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have... Acts 3

I remember finding it odd when the Lord told the disciples to give the multitude something to eat. They had not a sack lunch of their own yet he said, "You do it. You give them something to eat."

Now here are Peter and John on the way to church and they plunge right in among the beggars whose hands are out expecting something. Those beggars knew exactly what they wanted. Peter and John knew their own pockets were empty. Did they choose a less conspicuous route? We know the answer. They plunged in.

In speaking of this story, Will Willimon observes that, "The path toward significant prayer is a way that goes straight through, not around, human misery."

I would be false to say that I do not walk into the Mission sometimes and look at a situation that I feel is beyond my personal resources. Experience has taught me not to take the less demanding route. Christ has taught me what I have in His Name.

Time and again I have seen Heaven fasten its eyes on someone broken and stand them on their feet when I or one of our Chapel workers head right into the middle of the problem. "You do it."

Christ has given us His mighty Name. Fold that into love and obedience and you have, "Such as I have..." and the lame walk. It has to be God for we do not have it in us otherwise. The lame man wanted a coin. He got his life back instead.

As you pray, remember us. We need obedience and vision so that the broken may rise and re-enter life on level ground.

May the Holy Spirit reveal to all of us the wonderful possibilities of what we possess for the Kingdom.

In His service,
Rev. John T. LaMantia

(September Director's Letter)

Friday, August 15, 2014

Benefactor


Your words drop into my days
like coins in a purse.
I am rich. I am full of
astonishing abundance.

Let the mice come with
their nibbling teeth.
I am tethered to the storehouse
of a thousand sunrises;

to the One who spoke
silver into seams,
coaxed gold into mountain streams,
who bled into rubies and
set the sapphires with stars.

Benefactor
-by Kat

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Dragonfly Rain

I saw a dragonfly in the rain
stinging and relentless it came down
He was so still I thought he'd drowned

But when the sun began to shine
I saw with joy that he was fine
and had in no way come to harm

I saw a dragonfly fly again
A storm that might so easily oppress
had but made him iridesce

Lord, may the dragonfly's flight be mine!

Dragonfly Rain

-by Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia

Many are saying about me,
"Even with God on his side,
    he won’t be victorious.” 
But you, O Lord, are a shield that surrounds me.
    You are my glory.
    You hold my head high.
I call aloud to the Lord,
    and he answers me from his holy mountain. Selah
I lie down and sleep.
    I wake up again because the Lord continues to support me.
-Psalm 3 (The Voice)

Monday, June 30, 2014

In Community

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13 KJV


I find that whatever ministry I practice must be done in the larger context of community if it is to have any authenticity at all; if it is to have any lasting value to the person ministered to and also if it is to be of benefit to me.

I do not give a sandwich away without giving my heart along with it. If all I give you is a pair of socks your feet will be dry but your soul will remain a desert- and so will mine.

Jesus was more about connections than He was about fish and bread. We belong to one another. That is the only real basis for charity if charity is to become a bloom not a blight on the human landscape.

May our hearts fill our hands.

Bless you as you step into the week ahead.

John LaMantia

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Imperfect Prayers

When imperfect people pray God listens. We don't have to memorize rituals and perform them flawlessly. We just open our heaped up, conflicted, imperfect hearts and lean into Him the way my son used to lean his weight against me when he was small and church had run long.

Our praise of Him may be like those pictures that adorn the refrigerator where Daddy is drawn with a big circle for a head, a missing body and the wrong number of fingers but someone so loved them as to put them on display.

We are precious and loved and therefore welcomed by every gesture, by every word in which our open-hearted God has revealed Himself.

Approach Him today. You can't fail to get it right. Christ has already done that for you. Just lean in.

-John LaMantia

 
You hear our prayers whether
they are full of thanksgiving
or full of complaints.
Your mercy is unending.
Even in your discipline
you restrain yourself
in ways we cannot know.
May our mumbled words of gratitude
and our fleeting praises
find crevices where they can grow
within your presence,
Lord of light and morning.
Amen.

Prayer from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (Claiborne/Wilson-Hartgrove).

Sunday, June 15, 2014

The Father's Day

Quite a few years ago I preached the Fathers' Day sermon up at First Assembly in Anchorage. John David brought a handful of friends to the service and Kathy and I took all of them to lunch after.

One of those guys who came that day died later in an accident. One went to jail but from jail sent his brother, who was in the military and was being stationed in Anchorage, to find us when he got here. That brother and his wife took the walk to the altar to give their lives to Christ when Rich Smith made the invitation at South Anchorage Assembly.

The following year on Thanksgiving we got a call from the one who had been jailed that he had given his heart to Christ in a jail service and shortly after that the real culprit was found and JD's friend was released. He thanked us for our prayers and asked for our blessing on the new business he was starting and on his upcoming marriage. He said he knew God had been calling him that Father's Day and continued to call until he answered by putting him in a place where he could not refuse.

We can not always see the outcome of our ministry or our generosity but God inspires it and uses it in pursuit of His children. Many of the men and women I deal with in my mission work and jail work have deep father wounds that need to be healed. Many have never known the safe embrace of a loving parent if they knew their parents at all. We have to tell of the wonderful love of God and model that same love for them even as a father would.

To all my father friends and co-workers who stand in the pulpits and go to the jails, who serve as His hands among the wheat anywhere it is ready for harvest, Happy Blessed Fathers' Day, you honor Our Father in the best kind of way by being just like Him.

Today I will stand in the Father's place and love His sons and daughters at the jail and at the Mission. I thank all of you whose prayers and support allow me to do so.

John LaMantia

The sound of a kiss
is not so loud
as that of a cannon,
but its echo
lasts a great deal longer.

Wisdom from Oliver Wendell Holmes

Remembering this Fathers' Day that "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Dreaming Pentecost

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:1 KJV


Thus began the amazing partnership between the Godhead and the newly birthed Church under the direction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, through the grace and intercession of Christ and by the will of the Father. A time of vision, a time of dreams, a time of adding to the Kingdom daily.

Our lives and ministry are on that continuum and we have every right to expect the Spirit of God to lead and inspire us even as He did in those first natal hours of the church of Acts. He is still the vision caster, the dream giver that the Kingdom may continue to come on our watch.

Listen to what Matthew L. Skinner, a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary has to say about the importance of this day:

"Sunday's Pentecost observances are more than a celebration of the past. They are not merely an end to Easter or a chance to launch summer programming. They are not opportunities for stoking nostalgia about the church's supposed glory days. 

Pentecost is an invitation to dream. For when a community of faith quits dreaming dreams, it has little to offer either its members or the wider world.

Like any good dream, these dreams involve adopting a new perspective on what's possible, rousing our creativity to free us from conventional expectations. They help us see that maybe what we thought was outlandish actually lies within reach. Maybe I can find freedom from what binds me. Maybe there can be justice. Maybe I can make a difference..." 

I have just returned from spending a week in the presence of my fellow Mission laborers from around the country and sharing their dreams and visions for inspired ways to address the social ills that beset us. Many have dreams it will take entire communities of faith in partnership with a miracle working God to pull off. Many have small dreams but they dream in technicolor and the fruit of those dreams realized will change the emotional landscape of cities.

We are a church birthed by fire and the scripture assures us that the darker our surroundings the brighter that light becomes- so I am dreaming and letting the Holy Spirit be inspiration for me. Christ has all the answers and some of them may be as unexpected in 2014 as they were in Acts.

May His fire fall fresh upon us. May we welcome it.

Blessing to you all,

JohnLaMantia

Friday, May 30, 2014

For the Looking

"We are surounded by everyday epiphanies. To get in the habit of encountering them, look each day for two things:

Something that surprises you
Something that inspires you


Many of us blunder through our lives as though we were asleep. Just being deliberately focused on seeing makes you more alert, more excited, more optimistic. You look, listen, and expect a life-giving surprise. Daily lives are transformed into expectation of meaningful sights. You may see things you have never noticed before."

- Judy Gattis Smith, Fear Not

When Kathy and I go for a walk we are quite a pair. She looks down and I look up. She loves all the tiny plants, the flowers the size of a drop of water, the ground cover with its hairlike roots. I am searching the clouds for elephants. Both of us are always surprised with our discoveries.

I think the point is to just be looking with a sense of anticipation. To enter the walk or the day with hopeful curiosity and to keep your eyes open.

Grace and delight make many entrances in our days and our nights. God is leaving signs of His Presence for us to discover in nature and in one another. In light or darkness, in all the time zones, in every language, high or low, in the clouds or at our feet...GOD!

May you find Him for the looking.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

God Bless,
John LaMantia

Monday, May 19, 2014

But When The Right Time Came

Lacy wings overcome by water
Become heavy as stone
An afternoon drink turns to death
Four perfect wings struggle to rise
Need has killed them
Exhaustion slows their effort
Iridescent helpless beauty

An insignificant breeze
Just a puff really
A nutsedge bows a tall green stem
Across the birdbath
Heaven has come to hell
Grace has built a floor
Over oblivion

The Nutsedge

-by Kat

But when the right time came, the time God decided on, he sent his Son, born of a woman, born as a Jew, to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, so now we can rightly speak of God as our dear Father. Now we are no longer slaves but God’s own sons and daughters. And since we are his sons and daughters, everything he has belongs to us, for that is the way God planned. Galatians 4:4-7



(I saw a lovely dragonfly dying in the water of our birdbath and then a long stemmed weedy blade of grass bent in a breeze and saved it before I could. -kl)

Underwater Dragonfly, watercolor and ink

Friday, May 16, 2014

My Heart is a White Flag

My dear one, give me your heart. Let your eyes find happiness in my ways. Proverbs 23:26

I work with a population that has many times given up. Giving up is not in the plan of God. Surrender, however, now that brings us home.

Few of us are willing participants. We seldom seem to have the requisite white flag when one is called for. Surrender often feels like dying and so we shun the experience.

Surrender lets us change sides, first as captives (but captives of love) and then as friends. Surrender empties out the bowl and waits on the Lord of the Feast. Not for what He brings but for Himself.

Long ago Our Father's love made provision to "rest" in our lives, to be pleased to be there. We are in the season of His pleasure if our days are being emptied of own wisdom, our own efforts.

It seems such a contradiction that hungry men and women come to the Mission to be filled and our ambition is to see them empty. It is not. The things of God cannot fill what has not been offered, what is too full of things not of God.

It is important for us to be the example of God-filled men and women to those we serve. To be transparent, authentic, genuine. We have to be the change we want to see in others. Surrender gets us there.
We can't be gnat sifters or camel swallowers either. It must be Christ radiantly loving the world from our hearts enamored of Him. Surrender.

God's economy is so perfect. The swap so momentous. The transformation breathtaking. The method so simple. Surrender.

Surrendered or not we cannot make Him love us more but surrendered His love is perfected through the life of Christ in us. That love is the medicine the world needs. When we discover the holy-empty which leads to the magnanimous God-life available to us it is life changing and not just our life that changes.

Oswald Chambers says it beautifully, "Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself."

My heart is a white flag.

-John LaMantia

Friday, April 18, 2014

The Kingdom Key

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Colossians 3:15

Love is humble, sacrificial and thankful.

Love will take and hold ground where brute force can only makes a pretense.

Love will step aside for God to promote a brother.

It rejoices in the success of another.

Love will admit wrong doing and bring forth repentant fruit.

Love will self examine and brick up the walls so evil shivers outside in the cold.

Love protects the vine from fear of foxes.

When love is perfected fear is unknown.

Love is a Kingdom Key.

The hand that holds it will see the rest opened.


May the God of Love and Peace be with you, Shalom.

-John LaMantia

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Today is Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday. Easter is a week away as Lent is concluding. What a week that was in history. A week whose events are still influencing history.

Palm Sunday remembers the triumph of Christ's entry into Jerusalem to cheers of, "Hosanna." This is often interpreted to mean, "Save us!" but it had a forceful element of worshipful praise accompanying it. The expectation of the Jewish people was high for the overthrow of their immediate enemies and the restoration of the former glory of Jerusalem.

When we first encounter Christ we often have the same expectation. We, like the Jews, have a different outcome in mind and are hoping for a different deliverance. We are concerned about today but God has planned for eternity.

God's love is bigger than we know.

Walk with Him this week- into Jerusalem, to supper with friends, to the Garden, to Calvary, to the tomb. Let us stand and peer into the emptiness of our own understanding and praise the One whose humility changed history. Let us trust the One who planned to bring us home.

Kathy wrote a poem she shared with friends that highlights Christ's Palm Sunday ride with us in mind. I share it here.

Blessings on this thoughtful day,

John LaMantia

He comes to shouts of Hosanna
coats torn from backs
thrown into the dirt
palm branches
stripped from trees
faith's flags flying
Hosanna, Hosanna
His heart grasps
the meaning
that eludes us
Obedience comes
in the Name of the Lord
A Lamb consumed comes
in the Name of the Lord
God rides to His death
on a donkey for me

Hosanna

-by Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

The God We Serve

The God we serve is the same, yesterday, today and forever. That is a powerful and comforting thought. Our individual, daily circumstances, however, are all about change. Change can be a challenge even when it seems good so it is helpful to partner with One who brings stability, security and vision.

I began my adult life in a tuxedo blowing a clarinet in the orchestra. The idea that I would ever become an ordained minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was non existent except in the mind of One who beholds the future as clearly as we see the words on this page.

My personal journey took me to the Army Band in Germany where I made the Savior my own, then on to the university for a teaching degree and graduate school. I got married, had a son and taught while ministering in my home church. The road to full time ministry, ordination, jail ministry, chaplaincy and rescue mission work led me to this time in my life.

I am humbled and thrilled to have been selected to step into the directorship of the Mission. I am honored to be one with a towel and a basin. Service is such a privilege. It is a privilege that weighs heavily upon my shoulders.

I am grateful for God's blessing and for the Board's vote of confidence. I appreciate Don and Charlotte Bettis and the staff of the Mission for their support. A special thank you to Bob Sloan and Bob Collins for introducing me to the Mission and to my wife Kathy for her support and constant encouragement. As for our supporting churches and donors- you must know that your partnership means everything.

May our journey together be practical, graceful and obedient. I have treasured my time as your Chaplain. I will do my very best to honor the Mission as its Director and, for now, also its Chaplain.

There have been so many hearts that have broken in my hearing this past year that now I can hear that breaking even when it is only a whisper. I can hear it even over the angry raised voice of a man with no bed, no pride, no future.

God give us ears to listen even as you form within us a charitable revolution that has at its core your will, your ways and your love. Let us set aside all our own rules and make room for your reign. Your hand will only bless what is truly yours.

May God be glorified in the work we do in the lovely Name of Jesus. May we listen and act as He would act and love as He would love.

In hope and humility,
Rev. John T. LaMantia


 Newsletter post from The Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission April 2014

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Ash Wednesday

I may practice devotions or I may cease simply reading and become a devoted soul. I may consciously and practically choose a devoted life. I may choose a life that shares the lesson; that says I am yours in all the exhalations, all the resting beats, all the genuflections, all the seconds between thoughts and actions. In the hazy line between moonset and dawn, I am alert. Between the last squash and the first snowfall I am a harvest of prose. I am set aside to notice the tiniest of changes, the most imperceptible grace, the greening of new directions. I move in the rhythm of your doings and speak but to answer your heart.

Ash Wednesday

-Kat


Morning Moon, watercolor and ink

Friday, February 14, 2014

Hatching Glory

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down. -Ray Bradbury, Author

To a special woman I know who is learning to build her wings.
-kl



Hatching Glory, watercolor and ink

Saturday, January 25, 2014

A Debt Of Love

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8


A few days ago another lady and I loved a group of homeless women at a special tea held just for them at a local Rescue Mission. Cloth table cloths, colorful plates and napkins, centerpieces with potted plants and ceramic birds, homemade cookies and red velvet cupcakes. There were hand painted ceramic cups to replace the usual Mission donations that had a Seattle Seahawk's logo or an encouragement to bank at the credit union.

Some of the women were stunned. Some were suspicious. Some asked where the coffee was. All warmed to the idea as quickly as a tea cosy absorbs the heat from the pot. 

My husband always laughs at how two men can ride to the top floor and never break the silence in the elevator but two women can go a few floors and discover where shoes are on sale, how to potty train a toddler and when the next season of Downton Abbey will be out on DVD. The tea was a delightful demonstration of that very connectedness.

We all guard our hearts and the homeless more so than most, but as women we always seem to leave a window unlocked. Christ slipped right in with the tea. It was a beautiful and rewarding moment when after a devotion about how God will never unlove us, the room relaxed and talk of plans and hopes and past loves filled our Valentine themed Tea.

There was laughter and gratitude and refills. There was singing. Some of it was not ready for prime time though I tried my best, I am no singer. Lady after lady, young and mature offered up her favorite love song for our enjoyment. Each woman had a love song even though she may have been without a home.

It was a transforming time. I know this because Jean and I went home transformed. It is always that way. We start out to give only to find we cannot empty the cup. Heaven's endless supply just keeps pouring until we are all awash in God's goodness.  

Romans speaks of the continuing debt of love we owe to one another, which is really a debt of gratitude to Jesus who loved us and gave Himself for us. Our lavishing that unselfish, generous affection on our neighbors is a way of honoring His sacrifice. In the distant past in some cultures one could pay a debt with tea. For me it was a custom worth reviving.
 
One of these days Christ will return and we will all take a ride to the top floor. I want to be in the elevator where the love songs are sung by women who have found a home in Him. Until then I am making tea in the biggest pot I can find.

-kl



   

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Awakening, A Morning Psalm



The dawn broke over
the mountain, your mountain,
blinding white and prismatic
The sun, your sun, discovered
an uncurtained sliver
of window, my window
and the room exploded
into brilliance
 
Just a sliver of you
was all it took to find me,
to make me shield my eyes
from your furious sunrise
 
"Light, exist!"
Oh, God, how glorious
you must have been
when darkness dissolved
in the fire of your will
and a million mornings rushed
upon eternity, your eternity
 
Uncurtain my heart, My Urgent Lover
I surrender to this new day, your day
 
Dazzle me!
 
Awakening, A Morning Psalm
-by Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia
 
To the One who is the Word
 
 
 
 
Fractal art by permission of Silvia Cordedda

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Table For Five


I was brought up Roman Catholic and have said my share of Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Bes prior to praying a personal prayer of reconciliation in Jesus name.

I have prayed in Latin and in English.

I have prayed out of fear; out of desperation; out of obligation.

Somewhere along the line I just started to turn my thoughts towards God and found He was listening.

I put down the prayer book and the Rosary and had a real conversation with the one Jesus said was Ours.

While recently reading Matthew in the Message I fell in love with the Our Father that I had banished for many years.

After reading and meditating on it I have to say I give it five stars.

I found myself guided by it to ask God:

Show yourself
Bring your world into my world
Act on my best interest
Keep me fed, forgiven and open hearted; from evil, from spite
Be God


Read it for yourself in Matthew chapter 6:

Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
    as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want!
You’re ablaze in beauty!
    Yes. Yes. Yes.
 
With each different idea I let myself enjoy what it means to me to have a personal involvement with my Father.
 
I shed the cares and emotional car crashes that hinder my freedom.
 
I let people back into my world I was inclined to post a no vacancy sign on behalf of.
 
I just adored Him.

Five treasures in one prayer.

The Our Father is back on the menu.

Sister Serafina would be proud.

-kl


Thursday, January 2, 2014

Continuum



I loved you once and forever
more than the forever of
the dearest childhood memory
or the taste of a first kiss

I loved you now in a way
that went backwards
and forwards in the same instant
and never disappeared

I loved you with all the looking
my eyes would ever do
and all the touching that could
live in tactile memories

I loved you before there was you
when you were only a promise
when you were a prophecy
passing over my lips

I loved you in all the times
that were not in-time
but were instead in-God
and came from His thoughts

I loved you then and in all
the days unborn
in moments unbaptized
unnamed and unknown

I loved you once and forever
without amendments or fine print
without treaties or lawyers
or the sound of snow breaking branches

I only loved you

Continuum
(A poem for my sweet husband John's birthday)
-by Kat Cavanaugh LaMantia

January 2, 2014

 God’s blessings follow you and await you at every turn:
    when you don’t follow the advice of those who delight in wicked schemes,
When you avoid sin’s highway,
    when judgment and sarcasm beckon you, but you refuse.
 For you, the Eternal's Word is your happiness.
    It is your focus—from dusk to dawn.
 You are like a tree,
    planted by flowing, cool streams of water that never run dry.
Your fruit ripens in its time;
    your leaves never fade or curl in the summer sun.
No matter what you do, you prosper.

Psalm 1 
The Voice 



Fractal art by Silvia Cordedda
with permission

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

The Silence Between The Waves

I remember standing on the wet, cold sand of Ocean City one early July morning of my thirteenth summer. The beach was empty except for the crabs hiding in their sandy holes, their locations revealed by a telltale bubble when the waves drew back from the beach.
 
The sea looked friendly enough. The sea was a liar. One moment I was swimming on her foamy breast and the next I was upside down in her green sucking undertow. 


Those who live with the ocean hear the crashing of the waves as do those of us who only visit. What those intimate with her hear also is the silence between the waves. In those moments of silence the ocean is gathering strength to birth the next onslaught. We hear the crash, we capture the curls on film or canvas but the power of her silence is invisible to the uninitiated and can be mistaken for weakness, even safety, or be missed entirely.

The ocean drew back from the shore at high tide and it drew me deeper into her great lungs. What was silent above was noisy and urgent below. I was caught in the sea's powerful assembly line where every sound was amplified and every movement insistent.

I very nearly drowned that morning before being slammed back onto the beach with a nose full of salt water and a bathing suit full of sand and rocks.

There are moments in my life when my ocean is full of swells and curls and flying foam. But my heart lives between the waves in the silence that prays and listens then bears down to push.  When the ocean is "quiet" she recovers her strength to go on. To move things from one shore to the next. To patiently wear away great rocks. To be drawn up into the clouds and make rain. To change her world. She is at her most robust when she seems to be only holding her breath.

Let it be so in the year that has arrived on our shore. May we welcome the gathering strength of the silence between its waves. May we welcome the One who whispers between the breakers, who set limits upon the great bodies of water but who promised us unlimited resources to accomplish the loving ends of His precious Kingdom.

May that Kingdom come to us in the year ahead. May it inspire and anoint our diverse beaches. May it reveal the deep things of God to us. May it baptize anew our every hope. May its eloquent silences be sought after.

May we welcome prayer with new hospitality.

I wish you all a joyous and loving New Year.

-kl


No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it—What God has arranged for those who love him. But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along. Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking, but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us. 1 Corinthians 2 (Message)