Articles By Jeannette Clift George from Center Stage

One of the few things you can count on in life is the dependability of its changes. Patterns, principles and politics change! And then there is God – Who remains constant and sovereign and eternally dependable – and we keep expecting Him to change.

Do you ever feel suspended between securities, in flight, past the known grip of planned programs, and facing a landing pad subject to displacement?

"I spoke to you rising up early." That phrase of God's continual plea for our hearing gives us a picture of His earnestness. He rises up early – to get the jump on all those things that will occupy us during the day.

Contemporary dialogue has so switched meanings. We often stammer, searching for words that will say what we feel. But one awful word should be deleted entirely, along with certain phrases now shockingly acceptable on T-shirts!  I see it's encroachment on the passions of commitment, in the defining of belief and in the enthusiasm for standards. It's a low energy word that makes the monogram of faith fade in the wash of apathy.

God, Who gives loving gifts, always knows us as we are and knows the calendar of our days as though they were pasted on His Holy mirror. Miracle: Knowing us as we are, He gives gifts that fit the pattern of what we do! The child of God is never encumbered by the gifts of God, they never melt in the sun, they are resilient, never inappropriate and He says in His Book, that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.

Have you known a time like that? Living your life without really being active in it? Dispossessed by fear, or grief or such enormous self-doubt you make no choices, know no joy and hope becomes a verb in other people’s plays but totally inappropriate for yours.

I find myself often in debate; debate with the absent writer of a script with which I do not agree, debate with the opinion in a book highly recommended with which I find little to recommend, and occasionally (and with very little success) I debate with God. It is not addressed as debate, but I do try to get God’s will to serve Jeannette’s and even challenge Him with proof texts from His Holy Word that, with a little bending, will match what I wanted in the first place.

From the trivial to the terrific – God has to be somewhere. He may not be evident in the desolate moment, but He has to be somewhere in the desolation of lostness – somewhere there is God. It is true because He said so.

One of the hardest things for me to do was to take down the furnishing of her bedroom. As I moved to her dressing table, the fragrance of her face powder enveloped me in the remembered softness of my mother’s never-wrinkling cheeks. I looked up into her mirror and saw, scotch-taped around it, favorite Bible verses that had framed her face as they had framed her life. It was not grief that held me there on the bench of her dressing table; it was a small, private celebration. I was an heiress and I thanked God for all the wealth of my mother’s giving. She loved me well. She allowed me to see the directness of her faith in action, her allegiance to Christ set the pattern for mine.

The jar of mustard was practically empty – and all the while a full jar of mustard was waiting on the shelf! And yet, I ignored it to fuss over the empty one. Two principles seemed appropriate to me as I fussed at myself for wasting time.

“Entitled to this” and “entitled to that”. Because I have done “that”, I am entitled to “this” selection of favors. I am sure I am as guilty of the phrase as those from whom I hear the words, the disease is
highly contagious. The term has its basic and rational applications, but its philosophy extends to a blanketing of attitudes serving the ego and disserving the energy of accomplishment.

One of the hardest things for me to do was to take down the furnishing of her bedroom. As I moved to her dressing table, the fragrance of her face powder enveloped me in the remembered softness of my mother’s never-wrinkling cheeks. I looked up into her mirror and saw, scotch-taped around it, favorite Bible verses that had framed her face as they had framed her life. It was not grief that held me there on the bench of her dressing table; it was a small, private celebration. I was an heiress and I thanked God for all the wealth of my mother’s giving. She loved me well. She allowed me to see the directness of her faith in action, her allegiance to Christ set the pattern for mine.

I think it is time for the adult community to hold up maturity as a goal to be sought and prepared for with attention to its predications of care. Why eat your vegetables, why take the vitamins, why take careful thought? Because maturity is actually worth its regimen!

As a returned runaway from God, I found prayer the most reasonable aspect of my newly reclaimed Christian life. And then from the same Bible that had brought me to Him came interruption in the dialogue with Him. God, Who was serving me so lavishly now, made demands on me for obedience. The issue was the sensitive matter of forgiveness. I had accepted Christ as Lord, but never expected Him to exercise His Lordship outside the stated perimeters of my intention. My prayer life stopped dead in its tracks. Actually, when we limit God’s Sovereignty to the accountability of our own will, fellowship does stop dead in its tracks.

No matter how much fuss you make about it, you can’t give what you don’t have. The answers of God must be received before they’re shared.

God speaks to us in wind and earthquake and fire, but often, when we turn down the volume of our human expectations, He speaks to us in the silence.

I had thought I might be awakened by a birthday call, but no such greeting started my day. I walked to church half expecting the friends who regularly worshiped with me to pop out from the corner of Broadway and 79^th Street. None did. All day I waited. No call. No surprise visitor. I got older and older. I decided this lost birthday was not going to get me down.

We can live our lives dependent upon varying advisors and never be at ease, on time, or in place. Isaiah 26:3, paraphrased, “Trust God’s timepiece for peace in time.”

I find myself often in debate; debate with the absent writer of a script with which I do not agree, debate with the opinion in a book highly recommended with which I find little to recommend, and occasionally (and with very little success) I debate with God. It is not addressed as debate, but I do try to get God’s will to serve Jeannette’s and even challenge Him with proof texts from His Holy Word that, with a little bending, will match what I wanted in the first place.

Do you ever feel suspended between securities, in flight, past the known grip of planned programs, and facing a landing pad subject to displacement?

The jar of mustard was practically empty – and all the while a full jar of mustard was waiting on the shelf! And yet, I ignored it to fuss over the empty one. Two principles seemed appropriate to me as I fussed at myself for wasting time.

It wasn’t an easy choice: Canceling a major program because we were hearing all the cautions of a storm brewing. Our company had prepared for a special event honoring our season’s subscribers.

Theater memories are wonderful visitations from history and I lingered over each picture – in most of them was me. Me, young, slender, pretty in make up and costume, a youthful leading lady able to stretch to a few character parts, comedienne and classical actress – me – a me that once was. And the thorn of a question interrupted the roses of reverie. Whatever happened to that me?

Do you ever feel that life is like a box of Kleenex – one problem is folded into another? Just when you think everything is solved, here comes a new mystery. The beginning of problem B is tucked into the hem of problem A. Well, join the club! Welcome to life! That’s the reason God gives us working principles that apply to the whole box of dilemmas.

You can’t run away from God. You can run for Him, with Him, against Him, but you can’t run away from Him.

Scripture teaches us we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, kept intact by His Holy Person, and that His Stamp gets our prayer messages where they are going.

Recently I enjoyed a display of crafts and one section of the gallery was of the work of various potters.  The signature of the potter was not only on the piece, but in the style of the work. Referring to the full display, the young lady said to our group, “You can choose your potter.” Such is the choice of the clay. We have a voice, we can choose our potter. We are being molded today by some craftsman.

As a child my father and I played endless games of checkers – which my side had never won. It was not that I only won occasionally, it was that I never won. The Christian life is no game, it is real. And God does not play against us, He is for us, with us, in us. However, celebrate this wonderful fact; He, God, wants you to win.

Contemporary dialogue has so switched meanings. We often stammer, searching for words that will say what we feel. But one awful word should be deleted entirely, along with certain phrases now shockingly acceptable on T-shirts!  I see it's encroachment on the passions of commitment, in the defining of belief and in the enthusiasm for standards. It's a low energy word that makes the monogram of faith fade in the wash of apathy.

"I spoke to you rising up early." That phrase of God's continual plea for our hearing gives us a picture of His earnestness. He rises up early – to get the jump on all those things that will occupy us during the day.

Are you weary, heavy laden, burdened with a load of care? Consider afresh James 1:17 “Every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights.”

He was a highly skilled set designer who had taken off from his work in Houston to design and build our sets. The limitations at the studio severely disaffected his artistry. Instead of his creative designs, he had to provide one fenced-in area suitable for all our show’s settings. I overheard what Bob was saying, “If God brought me to Kansas City to paint a fence, I’m going to paint the best fence He ever saw.”

Faith is not a lottery. God is not a gambling machine, but investment in Him is a sure thing.

Our attitudes are like writing pens; they frame the wordings of our thinkings, our talkings and our innermost philosophy. If the readout of your day is confusing, maybe, just maybe, you need a change of attitude, a new viewpoint.

To a new Christian there may seem to be a private language that only the advanced professionals speak. After years of Bible study and belief in practice, I can still be intimidated by scholars and theologians whose depth of study makes me feel the mature Christian language is beyond me.

We live in a world that has lost its gift of hearing. We say good things, do good things, and realize good things and no one says a good word about it. I know there is no virtue in doing good only to be praised, but that principle does not relieve us from the obligation of expression.

My husband believed chocolate needs were similar to the need for breathing. He would say, “You never can tell when you might need a little chocolate.”

You can’t run away from God. You can run for Him, with Him, against Him, but you can’t run away from Him.

The blue bird in our back yard is still an affirming principle, the neighbors green grass is really not a critique of ours, frequently being unhappy in our system of living is not a critique of our lifestyle so much as a critique of our eyesight. For a day, just for one day, try finding a cue for thankfulness in the humming drum of life as it is.