My husband, Jerry, has been doing Cryptogram and Jumble puzzles for many years, but they just frustrate me. I see no strategies to begin an attack on the mixed up letters of the Jumble. Trying to make a word out of the nonsense letters is like trying to assemble a puzzle without a picture. Occasionally I help him with spelling because I’m better at that than he is, but mostly I turn away when I fail to get the answer immediately, even though I know they help keep aging brains in shape. But Tuesday, in the AARP newspaper, was a Sudoku puzzle that included an approach to getting started. The strategy made sense to me. I worked the puzzle. I liked it.

Maybe you have things like that in your life—activities you know would be good for you, but they just frustrate you because you can’t work out how to approach them. Sometimes we need someone to show us a way, like the newspaper information did for me. Or we need to put our mind to developing our own plan for our piles of papers so we keep them moving to where they belong—on the desk, in the filing cabinet, or out with the recycling. Or we need to plan to wash the sheets on Fridays, the kitchen floor on Mondays, and take the garbage out on Wednesdays. Of course, motivation could be the real issue, but sometimes we just need to learn management skills.

When I saw the logic of solving Sudoku puzzles, they seemed possible rather than frustrating. The skill seemed learnable. I had not even tried a Sudoku, because I’d assumed they were just as frustrating as the others. Some things are not as hard as they look. If we focus carefully, make a plan, and find some help, we can do what needs to be done.

Jesus, help us turn toward what we need to do today, focusing, planning, and asking for your help.

When we plant seeds, we fertilize with faith. A small seed looks nothing like the full-grown plant.
We rely on the packet photos to inform our planting. We exercise faith in the seller, that they are
selling us a real possiblity that, given the right conditions, the tiny pieces of organic matter in the
paper packet will turn into tomatoes or potatoes or zinnias.

The Bible says we reap what we sow. Our spiritual seeds are also planted with faith. What we
plant does not look like the finished fruit. Planting a seed of time in the word of God sometimes
takes much faith to believe the time invested will yield a transformed life.

Planting time in prayer takes faith. Just talking to God, or what sometimes feels like talking to
the ceiling, doesn’t seem like enough to produce miracles or provision or more holiness. It seems silly,
sometimes, when it doesn’t seem utterly desperate. Some blessed people, I have heard say,
immediately feel a sense of the Holy Spirit when they turn to prayer. Perhaps it is easier for them
to plant the seeds of prayer because the experience of prayer feels somewhat like the fruit of prayer,
but for most of us, I suspect, we pray like we plant tomato seeds:   hoping the promise of fruit is true,
because the seed we are planting does not look or feel like the promise.

Jesus, help us plant the tiny, faith-fertlized seeds of Bible-reading and prayer, so, in due time,
we can reap the harvest of holiness.

When I said, in the last entry, "the core is war," I mean that in the context of Jesus’ victory. If we belong to Jesus, the outcome is already determined. A reader questioned that concept, so I want to be clearer. As I said to that reader, the analogy of D day and V day applies. Perhaps you’ve heard the analogy. WWII was clearly going to be won by the Allies after D day, but many battles were fought before the victory day. But the winner and the loser had been determined. The strength and power of the Allies had been established at D day. In the same way, the strength and power of God has been established at the cross of Jesus.The cross is the power of God onto salvation (wholeness, redemption, healing). 1Cor.1:18, Romans 1:16, NET.

And yet, from our point of view, the battles are real battles. Our failures have real consequences. Our victories have real benefits. When we find a real way to let God cleanse us of unrighteousness (1Jn 1:9), we are more peaceful, more loving. Ignoring the battle doesn’t work. What has worked for me is engagement in the battle by the power of God. That means a self-awareness of the possibility of sin, at the time of temptation, with a corresponding "Help me, Jesus," prayer. Not easy to keep on top of. In the overeating battle, I lost awareness last week. But whether we win or lose our battles, if we belong to Jesus, our ultimate wholeness is not in doubt.  He has covered all our self-destructiveness by his blood, and is at work within us to bring us to wholeness. Glory.

Jesus, thank you for your victory, being worked out in us. Help us cooperate with you today, so we may experience more of your power in our battles.