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Archive for April, 2017

A Most Fortunate, Unfortunate Day

Posted in God, God Stories, Spiritual Growth, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

I had a bad travel day this week.  What was supposed to be 8 hours of travel from a worksite to home became a 28-hour ordeal.  Three canceled flights coming out of one airport, the last one after I had only gotten a little sleep in order to be at the airport at 5:15 am for my trip home, left me pretty frustrated.  As I road in the taxi for the 1-1/2 hr trip to a different airport to wait 5 hours for a flight that hopefully would get me home, I admit I was throwing a pity party in my mind in my own honor.

At the airport I waited until a little after 7 to awaken my wife with a phone call for our morning conversation and devotion.  She didn’t realize immediately that I wasn’t supposed to be talking to her at that moment because I was supposed to be in the air heading home.  However, her sympathy and encouraging words, began the process of getting my mind right.  When she read the devotion from Jesus Always by Sarah Young though, that is when the Lord really lifted me up.  It was a reading inspired for that moment.  I’m convinced He does this often if we are open to it.  I have included a picture of the devotion below.  The gist was that God is with us at all times and we can trust Him at all times –  in the good times and the bad times. 

Well friends, that reading was like the sunshine breaking through after 5 days of rain and overcast skies.  While I was still about 12 hours from getting home, I knew the Lord was present and that His love was real and tangible.

As I boarded my first flight 5 hours later, I followed a petite young lady down the jet bridge.  I didn’t realize it yet, but Miss K was to be my seat mate.  On recent trips, I have rued the fact that no one chats on flights anymore.  It had been a long time since I had a good conversation on one of my flights.  The ever present and attention-sucking smart phone is one of the primary reasons.  And I can be just as bad as anyone.  Thankfully… in fact providentially, our trip was not one of those trips. 

Almost immediately after sitting down, Miss K expressed exasperation that she had left her book in the bag she gate-checked.  So instead of reading we began to chat.  Another confession on my part, in some instances I look to use conversations to share God stories.  I know that some of the miraculous things God has done in our life is for encouraging other people.  However, I am also aware I can “force” things and it is so much better to allow the Lord to lead the conversation.  Well that is exactly what happened this day. 

Miss K shared that she was considering going back to school for a career change.  It was casual conversation and I did not pick up that there was a problem or issue driving this.  As she was sharing a scripture came strongly to mind. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path.” Proverbs 3:5-6

I shared that with her and then the natural flow of the conversation caused me to share how the Lord had faithfully guided me through a job change that occurred over a period of 15 months.  Now until this point I had only glanced at Miss K.  But as I neared the end of the story, I looked her in her eyes.  It was only then that I noticed the tears rolling down her face.  There was backstory for her that she had not shared.  The work situation she was in was very difficult and she was seeking the Lord’s guidance in what to do.  Of course as she shared, now I began feeling wetness on my cheeks.   A few moments later I started laughing as I realized – the Lord only had to ground three flights and to get me on this flight next to Miss K and provide exactly the right devotion to adjust my attitude so we could have this conversation.  Suddenly the unfortunate travel day had purpose…  I am so thankful that the Lord gave Miss K what she needed.  I am totally confident He will lead her into her next steps.  I am also thankful to know that when things don’t go my way, I can lean into God’s faithful, ever-present love and know He is working things out for good.

This morning as I type on my back porch with the sun just rising and the birds singing songs of praise to the Creator, My heart is overflowing with gratitude that the Lord loves us and He is infinitely trustworthy.  Whether things are going well or they are far from “perfect”,

He is there,

He loves us,

He is in control,

and we can trust in Him.

Be blessed today my friend and be a blessing.

April 28 Devotion

 

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New Life

Posted in God, Jesus Christ, Photography, Responsibility, Spiritual Growth, Vision, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2017| Leave a Comment »

I love spring.  The bursting forth of new life thrills my soul.  The awakening of the countryside from the drab greys and browns of winter to multi-colored flowers set against the backdrop of green simply makes me happy.

We recently experienced the birth of our 4th grandchild.  My wife helped with the delivery and today Lilah Joy is 7 days old. We actually have two grandchildren now who were born on Good Friday.  Jasper Leland was born on Good Friday 4 years ago.  As I held Lilah last night I couldn’t stop thinking about what a precious gift I held.  As she lay restfully sleeping in my arms she was totally at peace.

I was reminded that this is what God wants for each one of us… to rest in Him, to put our trust in Him, to be His child and be at peace.  Holding this precious child and considering the amazing love God has for us was both humbling and inspiring.  Roman 8:14-17 comes to mind.  We are His children and He wants to be known as our “Abba”, our Daddy.

It seems appropriate that for most of us Easter corresponds with spring.  Jesus’ resurrection marks the ultimate of new life.  There are a number of ways that Jesus coming to earth, His sacrificial death on the cross, and His resurrection changed the world forever.

There is salvation.  The price for our sin has been paid and we can enter into a right relationship with God as our Father through what Jesus did on our behalf.

There is freedom.  The power of sin is broken because of what Jesus did.  We can experience freedom from the dominating and destructive habits of our old self because of the cross and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit given to each one who accepts God’s gift of salvation.

Oh, and there is purpose.  We no longer are subject to the whims of a fickle nature.  We are called and equipped to live a life that has God-ordained purpose.

There is praise overflowing.  God gave us new life to live in Him and to live for Him.  Our lives are testaments to the one, wholly, and Holy Other.  God is worthy of our constant praise.  We do this best by living in close communion with Him and responding in prompt obedience to His nudges.

Yes, spring has sprung.  The tomb is empty.  And there is new life… radical…rich…full… abundant new life available to all who trust in and give their lives to Jesus – the lover of our souls.  Rejoice my friend.  He is ALIVE!  And so are we.  Death no longer has a hold on us.  Neither does sin, at least it doesn’t have to.  The only power sin has left is the power we give it.  Let sin no longer reign in your body, but live your life totally immersed in Jesus and His saving, cleansing, healing, delivering power.  Again I say REJOICE!

Be blessed today my friend as you bask in the new life Christ Jesus provides.

As a new grandpa’s prerogative, I included a few pics of our new grand-daughter who helped inspire today’s blog.

 

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Chastisement

Posted in God, God Stories, Holy Spirit, Responsibility, Spiritual Growth, The Father, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 20, 2017| 1 Comment »

When I set out to blog, I made the commitment to be transparent in my writings and never sugar-coat the stories of my faith journey.  It is easy to write about the good things that God does in our lives.  Yet when we slip or when things aren’t working out quite as nicely as we would like, we can easily gloss over or ignore a significant part of life that likely carry’s meaning to many, simply for the sake of putting up a good front.  Today I am compelled to share a recent chastisement from the Lord.  Partly this is to highlight an aspect of God’s nature that is often mis-characterized.  Also, it is because the trap I fell into is very easy to slip into even if it is hidden in plain view.

In my last post, ALL, I wrote about Jesus’ declaration of the greatest commandment and what our love of God with all that we are looks like.  What you don’t know is that I wrote that a week ago under what I sensed was the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  But I hadn’t quite finished it.  While we have had a lot transpire in our family over the past week, there is no reason why I didn’t finish the post sooner.  I had clear nudges to do so, but I kept busy and I kept putting it off.

For much of my life I have risen early to spend 1 – 2 hours in bible study, prayer, and occasionally blogging.  But for the last week I would wake up very early, usually before my alarm would go off, with a strong sense of needing to spend quiet time with the Lord.  But I would reason that I could pray just fine snuggled in my warm bed.  Somehow one or two sentences in prayer would occur and the next thing I knew it was an hour or more later.  By the time I would arise, it was time to start the day’s activities.  Needless to say, my attempts at a quiet time were rushed, stilted, and not really a time of connection.  It was more like a child rushing through the kitchen late for school, snatching at whatever they can for breakfast before sprinting out the door.  It might have the appearance of eating breakfast, but nutrition it was not.  My quiet times had become like that – an appearance of the right thing, but connection with God and edification, it was not.

Tuesday of this week I did respond to the nudge.  I was up early and I got into the Word.  Afterward I slipped outside where a light rain was falling.  With an awareness of my lack of direction lately I whispered a prayer, “Lord, please steer me.”  Immediately the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart, “The boat has to be moving for the rudder to work.”  Oh my!  I am used to God’s encouragement and gentle correction, usually when I turn in repentance after I realize I have made a mistake.  In this case, I had been a little lazy for several days, but I assumed that getting up early was a good sign on my part.  The rebuke was firm, clear, and thankfully cut through my self-satisfaction.

Since our relationship is with the omniscient God, there is no hiding our true thoughts, feelings, and motivations.  If we are not careful, we can slip into self-deception and “think” we are fine.  But, getting into the Word, spending real connected time with the Father is the antidote we all need.  When we do, He will guide us into the way of truth and life.  And if we need more than a little nudge, He can provide that too.  The important thing on our end is to embrace His loving nudges and His firmer chastisement and follow Him diligently.  It ties into the last post.  When we are giving Him only part of our attention, part of our heart or soul or mind or strength, we are falling short of His high calling upon us.  It is not God who is lessened when we are not fully devoted to Him, but us.

Friends, I pray that your walk will be marked with consistent progress and Godly joy and peace.  But, when you do begin to veer off course, I encourage you to readily accept and embrace the Lord’s loving correction, however He may give it.  He loves you with an everlasting love.  He knows you intimately and His desire is always for your good.  Jeremiah 29:11 affirms this.  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,  “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Be blessed my friend.  And be God’s blessing to someone today.

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ALL

Posted in God, Holy Spirit, Prayer, Responsibility, Spiritual Growth, Vision, Worship, tagged , , , , , , on April 19, 2017| Leave a Comment »

““The most important one,” answered Jesus,“ is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”  Mark 12:29-30

Jesus was very clear here.  He was repeating the words from Deuteronomy.  I’ve read this dozens of times, but today the word ALL stuck out.  It was like they are being highlighted for emphasis.  Before I get to the weighty matter of what all means, let’s look at the four elements Jesus articulates.

Heart.  When I think of heart I think of passion.  I think of the thing or things that drive me, that compel me.  “The team with the most heart often wins.” It is more than emotion, but emotion is part of it.  Another analogy is if all our actions were a compass needle, our heart would be the point to which the compass needle consistently points.

Soul.  I struggle with distinguishing this from the other three, but I realize it is place where my will resides.  My soul is the center of my individuality and consciousness. 

Mind.  This is pretty easy, it is my cognitive, thinking self.  It is the part of me that processes data, assesses information, and makes decisions.  It is our intellect and the repository of all the data we have accumulated throughout our life.

Strength.  My strength is the resulting development of all my actions to date.  Much like a laborer muscled and toned from years of hard work, my strength is the capabilities I have now because of the life and actions I have taken.

So back to all.  Does Jesus really mean ALL?  And we are to LOVE with ALL.  If we love God with all then there won’t be anything left over for others – a spouse, children, parents or siblings, will there?  Well Jesus does say ALL and the heart, soul, mind, and strength pretty much encompasses everything about who we are.  How can this be?

It gets back to the reality that God is our creator.  He knows us better than we know ourselves.  He created us on purpose, for a purpose.  It is His desire for each person to fully fill their divinely ordained purpose.  But our purpose can only be found when we are immersed in Him and when we are filled by Him – through the in-dwelling Holy Spirit. 

By giving Him ALL of us, He is able to mold, shape, and transform us into exactly the person we are meant to be.  In some cases it is a transformation of sin habits.  At salvation the penalty for our sin is paid.  Jesus paid it on the cross and we said yes to receive it at our salvation.  We are washed clean by the blood of Jesus.  But the flesh still remembers the old habits.  Sanctification is the process of losing the old, bad habits and taking on new, good habits. 

A life verse for me is Psalm 37:4. “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  This verse makes perfect sense when it is aligned with Jesus admonition.  When God has our heart, soul, mind and strength, we cannot help but become aligned with His heart.  When our heart aligns with His heart it will desire what He desires.  When we desire what God desires, we become partners with Him is seeing these things come to be.  In some cases we will be moved to missions, moved to serve sacrificially, moved to go and do the things we have been prepared to do with the totality of our life experiences and under God’s anointing.  In all cases we will be moved to love more deeply and fully than we are able to without Him.

Another aspect of this is we will be moved to pray God’s prayers.  Intercession is a high and holy calling.  I’m not talking about reading through a list of names and asking God to bless family and friends.  Intercession which emanates from God’s heart to our heart is a burden to pray for specific people and needs even to the point of travail. God wants to partner with us, to pray through us.

There is one final element of Jesus’ saying that needs emphasizing.  The admonition begins with LOVE.  Love is a game changer.  We can serve.  We can honor.  We can follow.  But none of these meet the standard of loving God.  They each are manifestations of our love response, but love is deeper and richer than these alone.  Love is the deep-seated acknowledgment that God is the wholly complete other to Whom our devotion, desire, and passion is aimed.  1 John 4:16 says this.  “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

To love God with All that we are is to enter fully into the life we were created for.  Amazingly we find that our ability to love and do the things God calls us to do become the desires of our heart.  He takes our attempts to love, pray, serve, work and, through His Spirit, accomplishes His good and perfect plan in us and in those He leads us to.  As we walk the road of loving God with our All we will find that He reveals our All to be more than we knew or imagined.  But it is only in losing ourselves in Him that He is able to do this great and wonderful work in us.

Purpose today to love God with your all and bask in the joy of knowing He first loves us and He will live fully in us as we abandon ourselves into His love.

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God is Not Fickle

Posted in God, The Father, tagged , , , , on April 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »

God is not fickle, but I am.

God is steadfast.  But I am too often wobbly knees and willing to consider an easier way.

God is a warrior.  Sometimes I slip into an easy chair and lose myself in Facebook posts that tell me what I want to hear.

God is persistent.  I can give up, sometimes just short of victory.

God is love.  And I am sometimes unlovely… very unlovely, but He loves me anyway.

You see He has adopted me into His family. And family is of paramount importance to God.  He will do anything for His children.  Even when we misbehave He pursues us.  Because God is persistent.

When the world, the flesh, and the devil seek to draw me away and I am losing the fight, God steps in and rescues me.  He has my back because He is a warrior and that’s what a warrior does.  He fights for those He loves.

When I am weak and exposed, when I can barely stand, it’s okay because He lifts me up.  His mighty right arm undergirds me and I know the One who is my God, my King.

And when I consider how many times I fall short of loving Him like He has loved me, when I miss out on an opportunity to demonstrate His grace to others, when I am self absorbed and fickle, I wonder how He can stand me.  But He does.

Because God’s not fickle… even if you are…

He is steadfast. He is a warrior. He is persistent.  And He loves you with an everlasting love.  Lean into His love today.

 

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