Tag: Christian

Searches that have Lord, Christ, Calling, Evangelism, or Discipleship in the descriptor

Posted on

Transform Thanksgiving into Everyday

Now that the turkey has been stuffed and the family stories regaled, it is time to transform Thanksgiving into everyday life. How do we infuse our everyday living to become a daily Thanksgiving feast?

Romans 12:13, “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”

This is the time of the year when we become introspective. Thanksgiving allows us to think of all the things we are thankful for. Christmas is the backdrop for showing love and appreciation for all who have touched our lives and those we do not know but feel compassion for their plight. New Year’s follows Christmas, a time of renewal. We commit to being a better version of ourselves. We are thankful, appreciative, and fortunate — not all of us.

This story is about the importance of dwelling on the richness of our lives. It should remind us of how important it is to share that richness with others.

Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

An Incredible Day

Atlanta has a spring art festival in Piedmont Park. It is a spectacular event both for its content and its setting. The Dogwood Art Festival is in the spring when the city is in full bloom. There are Dogwoods, Azaleas, and Bradford Pears in full bloom. Although the Dogwood Festival runs the entire weekend, I go down early Friday. I like that time; I can talk with the artist as they set up their booths before the crowds arrive. These folks are incredibly skilled. They have an absolute passion for what they do. You can see and hear their joy as they take the time to discuss their art. This passion is also reflected in the quality of their work and the prices they charge. The Dogwood Art Festival is not a mom-and-pop affair.

This particular year the weather was incredible—Azure blue skies and cumulus clouds that remind you of cotton candy. The gorgeous white and pink dogwoods are in full bloom. The temperature was almost non-existent, feeling neither cold nor warm, absolutely picturesque. The vendors were excited to show their creations. It was a joy to be alive.

A Chance Encounter

After walking around, I settled comfortably on a picnic bench not far from the vendor row to watch people. I like watching people. It fills me with curiosity. I was also growing hungry and deciding what cardiac-inducing meal to eat. Apparently, healthy food was taboo in the by-laws of art festival management.

A woman sat down on the bench across that table from me. She was in late middle age, conservatively dressed, and unremarkable in many ways, the kind of person you might see in a crowd without ever really seeing her, that perfect blend of human camouflage. She said, “I could live a year on the price of one of these things.” Without looking, I agreed.

Proverbs 19:17, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward them for what they have done.”

God has this incredible way of introducing me to the exact person He wants me to engage with. One thing led to another, and we started talking. I bought her lunch. She was living in a halfway house after being released from prison. Life had been long and hard and disappointing. That once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that could have taken her life in a different direction was always just outside her reach. The hurdle in her life was guys. They came into her life at the wrong time with mischievous intent.

There was determination and grit in her outlook. She had a vision but no plan to get there. It wasn’t a grand vision. It was a vision to become normal. You know, 40-hour workweek, home, friends, and maybe family. Everyone has a unicorn; this was hers. If anything, I am a guy with a plan. Our meeting wasn’t serendipity or coincidence; it was part of God’s plan for her.

Stepping out in Faith

We started talking about God’s plan for her life. God’s plan was for her to prosper. But she had to be willing to surrender her plan for His. He would be faithful in His promise if she would. The first step was to find a church that had good scripture-based teaching. Then she needed to join an accountability group within that church that she could trust. We talked for about 90 minutes. She was cheerful, engaged, and asked questions.

Hebrews 13:16, “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”

The transformation I saw was that she sat more upright. Her face softened. Her eyes were brighter, more focused. She stated that she knew her plan didn’t work. She had heard the message of Christ in prison and she felt she needed to look into it further. But she always put it off. She knew of a church that had members she knew. They came by the halfway house. She liked them; they weren’t pushy.

Others plowed the field and planted the seeds in her life; I was fertilizer (be nice; it’s a metaphor). The harvest will come.

1 Corinthians 9:10 “Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.”

Did she find her unicorn? I don’t know. I do know that God wants me to be obedient for the sake of others and share the bounty of His love for me with them.

Hebrews 6:10, “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.”

Posted on

Normalization

Response to Normalization

Normalization: Any process that makes something more regular typically means conforming to some regularity or rule. To cause something previously regarded as anomalous (aberrant, incongruous, abnormal) to be accepted, as usual, thereby altering the accepted norm.

I just returned from an IMED trip to India. Every trip to a new environment brings unexpected revelations. It is interesting how people normalize their environment. A person is born into or raised in an environment that becomes their ecosystem. It is all they know. They don’t see activities as abnormal. As an outsider, the same activity seems strange and out of place.

What is Normal?

When I visit Africa, they live in houses with dirt floors and no electricity or running water. They don’t go home to watch TV or surf the internet. But they dress impeccably. They are happy for the most part. They have the same concerns as most people regarding politics and the staples of living, but the scale is different.

When I travel to South America, they live by a little higher monetary standard. They have electricity and running water but must deal with the Cartel. A certain amount of money has to be paid for security. To them, it is the way it has always been and will always be.

My trip to India was noisy and chaotic. One of my friends described it as someone kicking over an ant hill. Honking horns seemed to be the primary way of steering through traffic. Crossing the street is an adventure; there is never a break.

Behavior has been normalized to all the people who live in these environments. They don’t see it. It is the way it is and will be. There are so many experiences in our lives that have become normalized. Over the years, modern society has accepted more deviant behavior as normal. Children born in this century have been raised to believe that behavior that a few decades ago was unacceptable is now standard. It is so normal that one cannot speak against it.

As outsiders, we should see it differently. It should seem strange and out of place, but does it? Have we normalized behavior that is unacceptable to God?

The Greatest Commandment

What should our response to this new normalized behavior be? The answer lies in the Book of Mark.

Mark 12:29-31, “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none another commandment greater than these.”

The first part is to love God. Jesus is quoting right out of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

Our love for our Savior dictates our behavior. One of the most significant indicators of this love is to keep his commandments.

Joshua 22:5, “Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

In a broken world, that means not letting the new normalization creep into our lives. It is holding to a standard of behavior that pleases God. It is not compromising when the world screams for compromise. Do not go along just to get along. Loving God is holding to a single truth.

The Second Greatest Commandment.

But loving God is the first part of what Jesus had to say. He also said that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.

Leviticus 19:18, “Don’t seek vengeance. Don’t bear a grudge, but love your neighbor as yourself, for I am Jehovah.”

Compassion and grace should be the leading indicators that we are children of God. As we deal with people who do not share our Biblical perspective, we must remember who we are. Biblical doctrine and theological preference are not more important than love. We must stay steadfast to the truth but not in a way that condones loveless behavior.

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.  – Anne Lamott, on page 22 of Bird by Bird

I am uncomfortable with some of the life decisions I see being made by others. I have to remind myself that I am only responsible for the decision I make, not the decisions others make. Non-believers do not operate on the same set of standards. Before salvation their lives are given over to sin. The only way to have a meaningful dialogue is to be a person with whom they want to engage. The life of a believer must be seen as a better life than the life of a non-believer.  Presenting truth must be accompanied by understanding. They don’t prescribe to what we believe. Until they see the benefit of God’s love, they will not seek change.

Love

I wrote recently about “Love’s Reaction to Anger.” In that post, I tried to present that anger over sinful behavior is Biblical, but we should guard against our reaction to that anger. Sin causes us grief; the sinner is caught under sin’s influence. Our goal is to influence the person controlled by sin to seek deliverance. That cannot be accomplished outside the umbrella of love.

You can be absolutely right in your point of view and ineffective in your communications of that view. The object is not to be right but to be effective.

1 John 4:7-10, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Posted on

Love’s Reaction to Anger

Anger

What is love’s reaction to anger? There is another side of love that we all experience; it is those moments when we can’t seem to avoid being angry. One of my close friends said it this way; “There are moments when we are angry because our children have sinned, but it is not an anger at them, but an anger that sin has crept into their lives.”

Ephesians 4:26 “Be angry, yet do not sin.”

Interestingly, Paul did not tell the Ephesians not to be angry; he said yet do not sin. My bible group quickly went down the path of righteous indignation as an explanation. There is some validity in that concept, but it is a slippery slope. Someone else had to bring up that in John Jesus did mention “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” How do we demonstrate love in our anger?

Some may preach that we should rid our lives of anger; I’m not sure that was God’s plan.

PHYSIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ANGER

We have to recognize that God built into us a defense mechanism for times when we are in danger; this is the fight or flight response. How does that work? Emotions more or less begin inside two almond-shaped structures in our brains, which are called the amygdala. The amygdala is so efficient at warning us about threats that it gets us reacting before the cortex (the part of the brain responsible for thought and judgment) can check on the reasonableness of our reaction. Inside your brain, neurotransmitter chemicals known as catecholamines are released. These cause you to experience a burst of energy lasting up to several minutes. You experience this burst of energy through increased heart rate and breathing. This burst is behind the common angry desire to seek immediate protection.

James 1:14-15, “but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

Although your emotions can rage out of control, the prefrontal cortex of your brain, which is located just behind your forehead, can keep your emotions in proportion. If the amygdala handles emotion, the prefrontal cortex handles judgment. God gave us balance.

BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ANGER

James 1: 19-20, “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

Notice that James did not say “does not become angry,” he says “slow to become angry.” The implication is that there are situations in which we may become angry. But he tells us that anger does not produce righteousness.

Psalm 37:8, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.”

Psalm’s tell us why; anger can lead us to evil. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:27, “do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.” Uncontrolled anger is a breeding ground for sin. Nowhere that I am aware of does the bible condone anger. It accepts that it does exist and cautions us to control it.

Colossians 3:8, “But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.”

We are to put them all aside, that is to say: don’t give them a voice. We need to step back and let our frontal cortex control our emotions and react in love.

ANGER ITSELF

If we look at the reasons we become angry, they fall into a few broad buckets. The first bucket is an easy one; it is genuine righteous indignation. This bucket is the easiest to recognize because it is the blatant disregard for scripture. It grows out of the evil acts of non-believers or hypocritical acts from firm believers. These do not fall into grey areas; they are black as coal.

Leviticus 19:17, “‘You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him.”

The second bucket is perceived righteous indignation. Perceived righteous anger is the devil’s playground. Perceived righteous indignation is where we feel we have the religious high ground when our motives are purely personal. The most common is that you treated me poorly, that is ungodly, and I have the right to retribution.

Romans 12:19, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord..”

The third bucket is my most dangerous bucket. This bucket is full of pride and insecurity. Pride and insecurity are where I feel little because I am misunderstood or unheard. It is where my perceived value is diminished, and I feel inferior. These moments are where I forget that God made me great and prosperous. I forget I don’t need the validation of others to achieve God’s potential in me. 

Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, for anger resides in the bosom of fools.”

ANGER AS A PART OF LIFE

For us fallen humans, anger is a part of our lives. Many times, it raises its ugly head before we even recognize it. The best we can do is refuse to give it a voice and seek repentance and comfort in Christ when it happens. When anger does lead to sin, go back to the aggrieved person and ask for forgiveness. The act is more about repentance than actually forgiveness.

Ephesians 4:29, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.”

Posted on

Who Taught You to Dream

Dream

Who taught you to dream; who is the one that instilled in you the desire to fly? Who encouraged you, motivated you, and holds your heart so dear and close that they will not let you fail? God designed us to soar above the clouds. He designed us to scream through the night as a ball of beautiful light and heat. He has given us the desire to grow, He taught us to weep with joy in those moments when it seems so right.

“Faith is choosing and believing God’s dream for your life. Nothing starts happening in your life until you start dreaming. God gave you the ability to dream, to create, to imagine.” Rick Warren

You are all songwriters, poets, and authors. You all have the ability to create incredible stories. The over-the-top, overcoming-all-odds come-from-behind stories we love. God taught you to dream. He gave you all the tools to become everything you were designed to be. He has brought people into your life to keep you on track, He gave you passions and gifts to motivate you along the way. What He wants for you is greater than you can imagine.

FINDING THE DREAM

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

First, you have to navigate the universe. God is not the only force in your life. Adam and Eve get credit for that. Unfortunately, most of the input you get from the world is hostile. A lot of it is passive-aggressive. It doesn’t attack you straight on; it compares you to others in a way you cannot win. It doesn’t say you can’t do it; you just can’t be good at it. Sometimes a well-meaning friend or relative wants to help you see that your dreams are not pragmatic or grounded. They want to help you find a path to pay the bills or create a life. Dreams don’t always operate on the same economic structure as the world. Chasing your passion will lead to success. Maybe not the world’s version of success, but God’s version.

We function the highest when we operate within our ability and just outside of our comfort zone. One of the things that accelerate our development is adrenaline. Our brains operate entirely differently when we are hyped on adrenaline. Remember that fear will also tell you when operating outside of your ability. The key is to operate within your ability, your God-given gifts, and resources, but outside of the area of your life that makes you feel comfortable. We cannot defeat fear; we only manage it. We need to know the difference between the limits of our ability and the limits of our comfort.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child, Listen to the don’ts, Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” – Shel Silverstein.

OVERCOMING THE DREAMLESS

Matthew 6:33, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Who clipped your wings when you first got off the ground? What voice in your head said that it wouldn’t work? Whom do you know that never caught the vision? The world is full of people who know why things won’t work. Finding fault is easier than finding your way. Giving up is easier than pressing on. Remember, they are not riding your wave. They don’t feel the adrenalin; they have spent their lives lost in a maze of dead-ends and disappointment. They want to save you from their despair. But God knows differently. God knows why He put that idea, that passion, in your head. He has a plan for you.

Proverbs 19:21, “Many plans are in a man’s heart, but the purpose of the Lord will prevail.”

If the people you let into your life to share your dream do not have an intimate relationship with Christ, their vision for you will be skewed. What they see for you and what God sees for you will not align. It is easy for them to find weaknesses because they look at your dream from the wrong angle. Everyone in your life has to be reading from the same playbook. That playbook is the Gospel. Christ must be the only coach.

LIVING YOUR DREAM

Dreams are not fairytales. They are not the happily ever after stories we loved as kids. Dreams are the culmination of hard work and tenacity. While being the most challenging job you’ll ever do, they are the most incredible job you will ever have. At the end of your time, you will look back with satisfaction on all you have accomplished for God’s kingdom. We were created for His pleasure.

Philippians 1:6, “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Posted on

Why Do Godly People Doubt God?

Why Do Godly People Doubt God?

Why do Godly people doubt God and want to ask for explanations and signs? Because God calls smart people; intelligent, wise people with their point of view of the situation that God is trying to change. Doubts and questions are not wrong; the failure is in giving in to the doubts and getting defeated by our lack of divine intervention.

 John 7:17, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”

Who are some Godly people in the Bible that doubted God and required explanations and signs before proceeding? Moses is the first to come to mind. Moses looked at the totality of his existence and asked why me? He had a terrible past; he sinned, killed, lied, ran away, betrayed his family’s confidence, and suffered stage fright. On top of that, he was 80 years old when God commissioned him. Any reasonable man would ask why me? Job, Joseph, and Gideon all had moments when they asked God, Are you sure about this? It is not unusual for Godly people to doubt God.

Corinthians 2:16, “For, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

Asking for confirmation is not only not sinful, but it is also prudent. How easily can we mistake the self-centered voice in our head for God? Because we want something to play out a certain way, we manufacture the dialog. God gives us resources that he expects us to use. The challenge is when we let those resources supersede guidance from God. We start to believe we know the answer when we don’t understand the question.

I look at four steps to overcome my doubt when God calls. They are prayer, scripture, counsel, and action.

OVERCOMING DOUBT WITH PRAYER

1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

Everything starts with prayer. Prayer is the catalyst that ignites the power of the Holy Spirit within us. All great relationships have open communications; neither party holds back. Tell God exactly what you think, and He will respond. We can’t touch His knowledge, perspective, and power, so don’t expect to be right. Be honest concerning your doubts. You can not hide your inner thoughts, so why try?

Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

OVERCOMING DOUBT WITH SCRIPTURE

2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

One of the things that always amazes me is that no matter what I am going through, the scriptures talk to me. I had a study Bible I used for many years where I read through the Bible in precisely the same order every year. Now my life didn’t roll out the same way every year, yet the passages I was reading that day met the needs of that day. The same verses can speak to us in many different ways depending on what God has to say at the time.

Cognitive or confirmation bias is when we consciously or subconsciously seek information that supports a previous position. Don’t use scripture to build your case. Don’t cherry-pick the passages or use them out of context to make yourself feel good about what you want. Let Him speak to you through His word if you doubt what God wants.

Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

OVERCOMING DOUBT WITH COUNSEL

John 16:13, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”

Hearing God speak through others is essential. It can happen in many ways, through a sermon Sunday morning or through a Christian podcast or online video. It can be through a discussion at Bible study or over coffee with a friend. Seeking Godly counsel when in doubt has many flavors. Remember that, as a friend reminds me, God will not ambush you. If you receive counsel that seems out of left field, it might be that it is. The spiritual counsel you receive should support or refute a previously held position. If it sends you in a new direction, go back to step one and start over.

OVERCOMING DOUBT WITH ACTION

James 1:22, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”

You can’t steer a stationary ship; movement is required. God is patient and understanding. If we truly want His will to be done, even if we misunderstand, He will course correct us. Doing nothing accomplishes nothing. God requires movement. Once you have done your due diligence, even if you still have some doubts, do something. Give God a chance to intervene.

Why do Godly people doubt God? Because He made us highly intelligent creatures with a desire to excel. He loves that about us and understands that we lack many of the resources He has. It is natural to want Him to validate what we believe to be true.

1 Peter 2:15, “For this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”

Posted on

Does God control your everyday walk?

Life can come at you in waves. When that happens, does God control your everyday walk?

1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

“In order to realize the worth of the anchor, we need to feel the stress of the storm.” Corrie ten Boom

The Conundrum

Do you ever have one of those days when life comes at you? It doesn’t always have to be dramatic, just tenacious, like dripping water eroding sandstone. It wears you down. You can’t find a quiet moment to catch your breath and focus. At times like this, God gets lost in the fog of life. He’s still there; you just can’t see Him. You can’t feel His presence.

I’ve had a couple of those days lately. A friend in Honduras was robbed at gunpoint, and they actually shot a hole in her windshield. Another friend in Kyrgyzstan with a Russian passport meets the criteria for mobilization. A very close friend is losing his business. People are sick. War rages. Inflation soars. My heart is burdened by a broken and dysfunctional world.

Matthew 18:7, “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!”

And yet I know God is in control. How do I get my head above water long enough to not just catch my breath but stabilize my emotions? How do I get the ground to stop moving long enough to stand?

Biblical Desperation is an Artifact of True Faith.

This is where God’s invisible hand of mercy gently cups us amid our turmoil. He holds us secure so that we don’t fall. He is patient and caring through our struggles. No matter how far we turn from Him, He does not let us get out of sight.

John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world, you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

I am convinced that Christ was not here to experience our struggles but to show us how to overcome them.  It wasn’t as if He didn’t know what His creation was going through. He didn’t need to understand us better. Because He knew, He came down to save us. Part of that was to walk among us to demonstrate that we can survive and prosper in a broken world.

James 1:12, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

The hard part about confronting a trying day is that the solution is counter-intuitive. When we want to press in to solve issues and move agendas forward, that is the exact moment we need to pause. Take a deep breath of God’s goodness, and remember who is in control.  Don’t lose sight of the fact that you were never in control. The things you are trying to rein in were never under your control. Let God control your everyday walk. Let Him take the stress out of decision making.

James 1:3-5, “For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for the asking.”

Middle of the Storm

In the middle of a storm, it is hard to visualize the blue sky above the clouds. But it’s there. It always was and always will be, no matter what the weather on the ground looks like. When bad days come, focus on what is above the clouds. Does God control your everyday walk? Focus on the one source of peace and assurance.

Nahum 1:7, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.”

Posted on

Experiencing Answered Prayer

Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

I love it when God validates prayer. First, let me say that this week has been a real downer for me. You don’t want to read the posts I created. They are all dark and gloomy. Bad things were happening all around me. They are not the type of things I want the world to read. So, I was stuck without something I thought God would want me to put out there. The answer is always prayer. I prayed for His word to flow through me. I got a twofer; Two-for-one. God answered my immediate prayer by reminding me of another prayer a year ago, almost to this very day.

John 5:14, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

On August 24, 2021, I published a post entitled My Last Day in Toknok. It was a lament concerning three fabulous women I had met in Toknok, Kyrgyzstan. We had met for dinner in a small restaurant next to what I could only call the most Chucky-like amusement park I had ever seen. This place was scary during the daylight; at night, it took on a new level of spookiness. The conversations were about the challenges of being a single, young, college-educated Christian woman in a predominantly Muslim country. Finding a husband and a career seemed almost insurmountable; it was a fundamental math problem.

Psalm 66:19, “But certainly God has heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.”

Here is the last paragraph of that post:

“The sadness is that when I come back, and I will, there can only be one sad ending or another. These young women will have chased God’s vision for their lives, and I may never see them again. Or they will not, and I will see a shell of the person they could have been. My selfish prayer is that God’s plan for them will be revealed in a way that brings us both joy.”

“My selfish prayer is that God’s plan for them will be revealed in a way that brings us both joy.” That was my prayer, selfish and self-centered. I wanted them to experience all the joy God had in store for them and simultaneously make me happy. At the time, it seemed improbable at best, impossible at its worst.

Luke 11:10, “For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.”

Well, let’s see what God has to say about that. First, on June 3, 2022, I wrote a post entitled An Incredible Answer to Prayer. Maftuna, the first of the three young ladies, married a great Christian man named Ravil. Their wedding video is a joy to watch. But God is not done. Today I received word that Nadya, the second of the three, is now engaged to Timothy, a pastor’s son. The three of us met a few months ago in the same restaurant where Nadya announced her dating Timothy but also voiced her concern. A concern that all of us at the table immediately dismissed as over-thinking.

Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you, and tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

That brings us to Nelly, the third and youngest of the three women. Best I know at this moment, Nelly is not engaged. But she has moved from Toknok to Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. In Bishkek, she is involved in a Christian outreach organization and is pursuing an opportunity to open/operate a Christian coffee house. God is not done with her yet, but He is establishing a path.

John 16:24, “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.”

The last answered prayer? You are reading it. God warmed my heart by letting me know that He is still at work when all seems bleak and dismal. We may not see what He is doing, but we can be assured He is doing it.

Psalm 5:3, “In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.”

Posted on

Lift Your Arms

What does it take to lift your arms in praise? I was listening to the Vince Gills song “When Amy Prays.” Like most things I run across, I had to understand the genesis. I needed to know what brought him to write it. It is an incredible picture of faith. I found the interview with Amy Grant, where she discussed the song’s origin and her relationship with Vince. She had this mesmerizing way of concatenating several seemingly unrelated stories into a great answer. By the way, it is the second interview on the v-blog.

What she talked about was; what does it take to get you to raise your arms in awe and wonder at the glory of God? This was an ongoing theme in their marriage. Amy Grant stood in absolute awe of God’s love, compassion, and power, whereas Vince was more restrained.

Deuteronomy 32:40, “Indeed, I lift up My hand to heaven, and say, as I live forever.”

It got me thinking about my own life. One of the reasons I love the outdoors is that I can’t get over the intricate and complex nature of God’s design. The level of detail and beauty seen in almost everything natural is fantastic. From the grandest to the insignificant, every detail was crafted with elegance. Expand that concept to the vastness of the universe; no words can give it justice.

Hebrews 11:3, “By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

What does it take for you to raise your hands in glory to God? How big does a miracle have to be before you recognize it for what it is?  Do you see God in the family pet comforting your child? Do you see God’s face in a kind gesture from a stranger?

Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.”

I was in Honduras this last week working on a B.A.M. project, and I lost my passport. Weird story of impatience and ignorance; basically, I threw my passport in the trash along with a used coffee cup. The story is a little longer and more complicated, involving interaction with security that didn’t speak English, hence why I had my passport out in the first place. I didn’t realize it until I got to my room. The real problem was that I was leaving back to the states in the morning. I resigned that God would solve the problem by helping me find my passport or use my additional time in Honduras for his glory. For the record, my request was to find the passport. I had no idea what I had done with it.

So, a gringo in the middle of the night is wandering around Honduras, back-tracing his steps, looking under every bush and rock for a little dark navy-blue booklet. Nothing, nada, zippo, no passport. Then I remember throwing away my old coffee cup in a random garbage container. It was both an act of desperation and the only option left. I went dumpster diving. I found it. Did I raise my arms in admiration and glory of what God can do; absolutely.

Psalm 141:2, “May my prayer be counted as incense before You; The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering.”

The passport issue wasn’t a big deal. Worst case, it was an inconvenience. Of course, the worst case became a little scarier once I decided to look for it. Did I see God’s hand in it? Do I believe that God is in on the grand and the insignificant? What does it take for me to raise my arms? Do I find awe in the God of the universe when the only universe I am dealing with is me?

Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Screwtape constantly tells Wormwood how to get his patient to rationalize blessings as natural outcomes. If you haven’t read “Screwtape Letters,” read it, if you have, reread it.  It is as contemporary today as it was when it was written. Screwtape wants Christians to find a plausible explanation for every blessing. He doesn’t want to see any arms raised. He doesn’t do this by denying the event but by acknowledging the event as nothing more than the natural and obvious outcome of previous decisions.

It is easy to fall into the worldly trap of rationalizing that which we do not fully understand. We look for easy answers. We try to find an explanation in the common. Maybe, we should expand our thinking and start raising our arms to heaven worshiping the God that makes all things happen. Nothing is too small for him. Nothing is too big for Him, but we know that, its the small part we don’t always get.

Look for a reason to lift your arms in celebration because of the goodness of God.

Ezekiel 17:24, “All the trees of the field will know that I am the Lord; I bring down the high tree, exalt the low tree, dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will perform it.”

Posted on

He died of a Broken Heart.

1 John 4:10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

My dad passed away a year ago at the age of 92. My mother proceeded him by just a few months. Dad and Mom had been married 72 years. My father didn’t die of illness or accident; he just stopped eating. Without my mom at his side, there was no reason to go on.

This isn’t a new story. We hear it quite often. Love is such a powerful force that it can cause one to die from a broken heart. By the will of God that, I should go the same way.

Dane Ortlund, in his book Gentle and Lowly, describes the death of Christ on the cross as not physical death but one of a broken heart. He talks about Christ taking on the sum-total penalty for every lustful thought and deed coming from the heart of God’s people over eternity. He asks what physical torture is compared to the total weight of centuries of cumulative wrath absorbed? He goes on to talk about how it was the withdrawal of God’s love from His heart, not the withdrawal of oxygen from His lungs, that killed Him.

1 John 4:16, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

This is a thought that is hard for me to comprehend. I know the anxiety and fear that follows every sin. It is either the remorse of my doing or fear of being found out. No sin goes unpunished or unnoticed. Every sin carries its price. We, as mere humans, begin to rationalize that it is the cost of being alive. No person is without sin or escapes their sin’s consequences.

 “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” – C.S. Lewis

What if I had to carry the weight and consequences of not only my sin but the sin of my family; or my town. What if it was only my country? If I lose sleep over my actions, how much more sleep do I lose if I know and accept the burden of the sins of others.

I have often thought of Christ’s death for me as a transaction. My sin sat upon a table; God, through Christ, dished out currency and took my sin away. The currency was Christ’s death on the cross. When I read about the horrors of Christ’s suffering before the crucifixion, I thought it described how high that price was. My focus was on physical death. That was an enormous price for someone to pay for an undeserving soul like me.

John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. “

Dane Ortlund painted a different picture. It was a picture not of physical pain but emotional pain. When I think of losing someone dear to me, it is a deep throbbing pain that no prescription will erase. People turn to medication, drugs, and alcohol to deaden it. Like my dad, we can lose our desire to live.

Christ did that not just for you but for all of His people for all time.

John 13:1, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”

Doing it for just one person takes more emotional strength than I can imagine. What was it like to feel all the fear and anxiety for everyone who lived? To do this freely because of His enormous love for those people. Every anguished cry across the millennia was being recapitulated and fulfilled through Christ. The voices in His head, the cries, the wailing, and their remorse all descending on Him to snuff out His light.

Christ did this without wavering. He looked directly into the very depths of Hell and did not wince. He saw the horde of evil descending on Him, and He marched on. My heart cries out for that level of love.

Today, we look within ourselves to see if Christ’s sacrifice was in vain. He died of a broken heart because of us. Can we say that the lives we are living are worth it?

1 John 4:11, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another?”

Posted on

The Fixer

Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

I’m in my home town visiting my family. I spent my “formative” years here. Although I have been away for the better part of half a century, I still call this home. The kids I went to high school with are still kids to me. The images of them hanging out is still fresh in my mind.

THE PAST

One of my schoolmates just passed away. When she was in high school with me, she was a sweet, fun-loving girl with her whole life in front of her. Over time, disappointment and drugs took that away from her. I’m a guy, and being a guy; I want to fix things. I’m also an engineer, so double that. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn in life is that there are certain things that I can’t fix. No amount of trying and praying and working was going to improve it. Some things are the exclusive purview of God.

Psalm 73:26, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

I love the striving. I love overcoming. I love the against-all-odds victories. I relish the emotional high of seeing someone rise above their circumstances to achieve the improbable. But it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes we make choices that are hard to undo. We go in directions that are hard to reverse. We pick a life that doesn’t end well. I hate that. I hate that terrible endings are even possible.  

The truth is that God gave us free will. That free will allowed us to demonstrate our love for Him by freely choosing Him. It also means that we are free not to choose Him. We can not make that decision for anyone but ourselves. The guy side of me has a problem with that concept. Even though I make bad decisions for myself, I still want to help others make good decisions. It is most apparent when it’s too late. It is with regret and remorse that I look back.

John 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

THE PRESENT

We all have people in our lives that we want to see for eternity. We want them to share the beauty and majesty of eternity with our Maker. But we believe there is time. There is time to share the gospel. There is time to have that difficult conversation. There is time to save a life for eternity. One day we find out there isn’t any more time.

Psalms 27:4, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

Don’t get me wrong; you can’t fix it any more than I can. We each have to choose. But do we choose with full knowledge? It is easy to feel responsible somehow. You knew them. You knew a little about what they were going through, but you’re a thousand miles away. Your orbits crossed sometimes but never synched up. What could you have done? Nothing in some cases. But there are a lot of cases you could do something. Would you? You know people who need to hear full disclosure concerning their decisions.

Hebrews 11:6, “And without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Their soul gets pushed down into the mire of their lives and suffocates. They live the only life that they know. Unconditional love and redemption are not topics they believe in. Mostly these are not bad people; they do good for others and are positive examples to those around them. Their focus is worldly. Their actions are self-supporting. They believe when life is over, it is over; there is nothing else. I am sometimes surprised at how many activists don’t have an eternal view. These are people who fight against evil but don’t believe in it.

1 Peter 2:15, “For this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”

THE FUTURE

Where most great intentions fail is in the implementation. It is in the execution that we trip and fall. No, we can’t fix certain things, but we can create an environment that attracts curiosity. We can build relationships that expose full knowledge. We can take a minute to step into the lives of those around us to draw them in. In the end, it is they that must accept or reject Christ. It is up to us to lay the groundwork for that decision. That groundwork is not just words but actions; the way we live our lives. Then we let God take over.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Purpose Driven Life Proudly powered by WordPress