Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘god’

Psalm 73-75, Acts 28:1-16. Tunnel Vision.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

It is easy to lose sight of the big picture. Sometimes we never even consider the big picture. A common feature in the lament psalms is this seeming fixation on the wicked and those who oppose the psalmist – whether it is David, Asaph, or an anonymous writer. A “woe is me” and “why aren’t you doing something God” attitude is actually captured throughout these psalms. It used to bother me, but now I’m glad they did. They were real and they show the starting point for realization and return. When they realize they are focused on the wrong thing, the temporary thing, and they return their focus on God, the entire picture shifts.

Hidden in our hearts is this echo of Eden. God created a place for us to dwell with Him in perfection. Everything was good. Anything that was needed was provided. Intimacy with Love Himself was the center point of this idyllic existence. There was only one thing that was forbidden – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet, with a little prompting from the serpent, Eve and Adam became enamored of the forbidden. Love for God and intimacy with Him fell to second place as desire for this forbidden thing became their primary desire.

The Psalmist, probably correctly, observes those who flaunt God and His commands, and He is incensed. But with this observation comes a desire not unlike Adam and Eve in the garden. The current prosperity of the wicked and the seeming lack of response from God stirs up envy that is every bit as damning as the arrogance of the wicked. Allowed to continue, this tunnel vision would have brought about the downfall of one called to be faithful in all circumstances.

Thanks be to God, He is near at hand. He allows the wicked to prosper for a little while that they might realize their need for Him and turn. He allows us to see this, not to tempt us, but to encourage us to turn our eyes, our hearts to Him in trust, to look at the bigger picture. God’s past faithfulness is just one piece of the big picture we can look to as reminders that God is good and He will make all things right. The Temple itself was a magnificent reminder of God’s promises fulfilled and His presence among His people.

Today I look at the big picture and I see God’s hand at work in every direction. For the child struggling mightily right now – Father draw her near and let her see the big picture. For the long career nearing an end – let the finish be strong and honoring to you. For the brother’s and sister’s I worship and pray and do life with – Lord continue to mold us and shape us. You are so good, so faithful, so present – help us to see with eyes of faith so that we grow deeper and stronger in You. Accomplish your good and perfect will in us and through us this day. Jesus, it is in your wonderful Name that we pray.

Read Full Post »

Waiting with a Purpose

Posted in God, God Stories, Holy Spirit, love, Marriage, Prayer, Priorities, Spiritual Growth, The Father, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

I don’t know of anyone that likes waiting.  I have met people, typically persons I would characterize as mature or wise, who dutifully accept waiting, but to say I know people who get excited about waiting, that would be a NO.  But for the past several weeks as we have been on a journey from a cancer diagnosis now through a surgery and next, a deeper diagnosis, waiting has been one of the constant undercurrents.  Surprisingly it has not been the dread that, at an earlier time in my life, I am sure it would have been.

Isaiah 40:31 (NKJV) comes to mind as I sit in this time of not-yet-knowing.

But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

I have a relationship with God, my Heavenly Father, because of what Jesus did for me.  In a small chapel in the piney woods of central Louisiana, Jesus made me an offer that I accepted.  He offered me a new life, one walking with Him from that moment forward.  It required my letting Him have dominion over everything, but He promised He would never leave me or forsake me.  For 40+ years He has been true to His promise.  He has been tangibly present for over forty years.  I have grown to know His leading through His Word, through the community of faith He has placed me in, and the witness of the Holy Spirit living in me. 

This is an offer that is available to every single human being.  It is His desire that we all become His children walking in a life-giving, love-saturated, joy-filled relationship with Him.  I share this as context to this strange phenomenon I am in.  I am at peace in this waiting.  I sense changes occurring in my soul as I wait in a place of trust.

As an engineer I do my research.  I’ve read some of the stats.  If the cancer has spread, the potential five-year survival rate goes down significantly.  In a detached way I acknowledge this potential knowing that Jesus has not left or forsaken me, therefore I wait in hope.  Those same percentages that are not in my favor do not compare to the One who is in my favor.  The odds of this working out for God’s glory and my good are 100% as I wait upon Him, as I put my trust in Him. 

I started to say “put my WHOLE trust in Him”, but I know that I bring all that I can and let Him supply what lacks.  I have learned that is often what the waiting is about.  Learning to release control.  Or more accurately, learning to release the illusion of control to the One who is able to meet all our needs.  Waiting on the Lord is the place where faith and patience are nurtured and grown. 

Waiting on the Lord fulfills His purpose in several ways.  As I look back, I can see the younger me and realize many changes wrought through the Lord’s work in times of waiting.

  1. The need to control situations to meet my perception of “good”.  While I would have said, I wanted the Lord’s will, there was often a flavoring of what I thought was best.  I often didn’t see God’s big picture point of view. 
  2. A bias towards action and doing something rather than beginning with prayer and waiting for direction.  Boy are there a lot of toes I’ve stepped on trying to “make things happen”.  (My apologies to you if you are one of those whose toes I’ve stepped on.)
  3. My understanding of Ephesians chapter 5 and what marriage looks like.  This one took years of waiting and being reminded by the Holy Spirit to “love Lisa like Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.”  (There will be more on this in the future!)
  4. Being male and an engineer, when presented with a problem, I naturally go into “figure it out and fix it” mode.  Not all problems require that formula.  In fact, that is the wrong approach at times.  The Lord’s work is often best achieved by pausing and allowing Him lead.  This is Spirit-led action after waiting on the Lord.
  5. Related to the one above, sometimes being present and inviting the Lord into the midst of the problem is all we are to do.  The Lord’s work is sometimes accomplished by my being there but stepping out of the way.  This is Spirit-led stillness after waiting on the Lord.

I find it no coincidence that this fresh season of waiting for us corresponds with our Bible reading plan in the letters of Paul.  Trials, afflictions, and times of waiting fill the chapters we have been reading.  Yet we read about joy and patience and hope not instead of, but in the midst of the challenges Paul and the early believers faced.  Things have not changed in this respect.  While we have many creature comforts unavailable to our ancestors, we still deal with sickness, hardship, loss, and death. 

Thanks be to God, the same Holy Spirit who gave comfort and guidance to the early Church is present with us in all our affliction.  He is not in any way constrained today from giving us what we need.   In fact, it is often through our affliction that we become keenly aware of our need for His help, guidance and comfort.  A key though is to realize the timing is the Lord’s.  Instant gratification is NOT God’s typical way.  No, He gives us this precious gift of time to allow the better work, the deeper work, the soul work to take place. 

Earlier in my walk with Christ, I remember asking the LORD to hurry up and give me patience… His response was a No and Yes.  He did not hurry up.  But in the waiting, I have seen much fruit grow including a patience that the younger me wanted, but struggled to attain. 

Friend, while I don’t know what your situation is, I have a pretty good sense that if not now, at some time in the near future you will be tasked with waiting.  It is my prayer as I finish today’s post that you will experience the Lord’s purpose in your waiting.  Let go of having to have answers right now and reach for having intimacy with Him.  The LORD loves you and He has the best in mind for you.  Sit with Him and rest knowing that the Lover of your soul is all in for you.  He will supply exactly what you need when you wait upon the Lord.

Be blessed my friends as you wait upon the LORD!

Read Full Post »

Fruit of Obedience

Posted in God, God Stories, The Father, Worship, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Intimacy with God grows as we are obedient. When we discern His voice, confirm it with the Word, recognize the affirmation in our spirit, and do what He says, we take a step in maturity.  Much of what He asks of us will either align with loving Him with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength or loving our neighbors as ourselves.

I once thought this meant a lot of hard work – hours scouring the Word, knees raw from prolonged prayer, exhaustion from tackling every opportunity of service to others. In my exuberance I was the energizer bunny Christian rushing here and there doing everything that I imagined a good follower of Jesus might do.  There were many spiritual high points and I am confident that along the way the Father has taken my offering and used it in furthering His purpose.  But I also see I have sometimes bowled over people, stepped on toes and generally left a wake of damage that I did not intend.

So if hard work was not sufficient to ensure godly growth, what are we to do?  The answer is that we begin by focusing less on doing, at least at first, and we seek to be who God created us and saved us to be – His beloved child.  Like an infant, our growth is a process that is best measured in gradual milestones.  The first step in a child’s development is the recognition and bonding of the child to the parent.  Developing the connection and deepening the familial bond is our first priority.  While this will last our entire life, it is our most important task when we first begin to follow Jesus.  In the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Galatians we learn that Paul, one of the most learned of men, headed into the wilderness of Arabia for an extended period immediately after his conversion before launching into full time ministry.  We do well to emulate his progression of seeking God’s face and guidance before jumping into “doing” for the Lord.

In time the child begins to communicate.  Again their primary source of communication is with their parents. Long before the child can begin to verbalize their own thoughts into words, their parents are talking to them, singing to them, reading to them. Our Father God is doing the same with us.  He loves us and He communicates that love in myriad ways.  This past weekend as I finally decided to rise from a particularly restless night, the Lord whispered in my spirit, “Come let me kiss you.” As I slipped into the front room of our house and the warm rays of the early dawn struck my face, I knew my Father was kissing me, His presence overwhelmed me, and it was good beyond description.  As I sit on this plane between two passengers absorbed in their own world, I can still feel the Father’s touch.  I know He is with me.  I know He loves me.  Oh, I am a fortunate and blessed man!

As I basked in the Father’s touch He spoke to me many things. Some were very personal and I don’t need to share those now except to say, He knows us intimately and He will speak to us intimately as we choose to make Him our Lord and the center of our being.  The one thing that He spoke that I recognized as for this blog was His call to obedience.

Continuing the metaphor of a child to parent, as we continue to grow in the Lord, we will be given increasing responsibility.  God will continue to pour into us His life, His light, His wisdom, and His heart.  As these become established in us, His vision and His call arise. There is a universal aspect of His call – reach the lost, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, encourage the down-hearted.  But in our growing intimacy He will be specific with us: the co-worker that the Lord brings to mind repeatedly, the message that powerfully reminds us of a particular need that we can meet, the phone call that comes when you are praying, “Lord use me.”

Response to the universal call is a good thing.  Response to our specific call is the best thing.  As I write this a picture comes to mind.  The Grinch provides an excellent illustration.  He had stolen every single bit the outward manifestation of Christmas from the Who’s.  Yet when he heard the Who’s still singing their joyful Christmas songs, he recognized the reason we celebrate is so much bigger than the gifts and food.   It is the reason for the season – Jesus.  His undersized heart grew 3X at that moment and he responded in abundant measure.  This same thing happens to us.  When, in our intimacy with the Father, He speaks and we enthusiastically receive and respond, our heart grows.  We are blessed as much or perhaps even more than those God has prompted us to love.

Today I encourage you to go deep with God.  Let His love embrace you.  Listen to His whispered words of love and let them wrap around you and fill you.  As you snuggle into His embrace, listen for your next step.  His call is a life in Him and with Him.  As you grow He will give you ”kingdom tasks” to accomplish IN HIM.  He is the King as well as our Father.  As such we are princes and princesses of the kingdom, living and working under our Father’s authority.  That is our blessed privilege.  Our growth and our Father’s favor are the fruit of our obedience.

Have a blessed day my friend as you live in intimacy with the Lord and walk in faithful obedience.

Read Full Post »

Lavish Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Have you ever met someone who couldn’t receive love?  Distant… reserved… guarded… sad – these are characteristics of the people I have met who struggled with giving and receiving love.  As I write this my heart breaks because I know what they are missing and I feel just a bit of their pain.  For love is the substance of the life God has created for us and us for.  Love is the Father’s most amazing characteristic even to the point that the Apostle John firmly declares, “God is Love!”

There are many ways we can miss this love.

We can accept a substitute and call it “love”.  Unfortunately we have many voices telling us what love is, what the ultimate experience is we should be seeking: the perfect romantic interlude, fame that results in fans who “adore” us, songs extolling varying shades of fidelity.  All of these fall far short of the Love that we are created to enjoy and share.

We can be hurt in an attempt to experience love and we allow the pain of that experience to keep us from opening up and trying to love again.

We can allow cynicism or hate to put blinders on our hearts so that we can’t see the love that exists around us.  There are times and places where love has been so maligned and attacked that it is much harder to see.  My mind goes to the brutal wars that have at times swept regions and countries or the horrific acts one person can perpetuate upon others.  However these are not proof that love doesn’t exist, rather they are adamant declarations of the need for the Love that heals and makes whole.

I read the book “Proof of Heaven” over the Christmas holidays.  An agnostic neurosurgeon, Eben Alexander, contracted a severe illness which put him into a death-like coma for 7 days.  During this time with his brain essentially dead he went to a place that he recognized as being a foretaste of heaven if not heaven itself.  One of the points that struck him and resounds in me is that he was totally and unconditionally loved.  It was so complete and tangible that his description made me think of being immersed in the most refreshing and satisfying light and warmth one can imagine.

I am convinced this Love exists and that it is available right now, right here.  In Eben’s near death experience all the distractions of this life were eliminated and he could experience this love more fully than he had ever come close to before.  However the same Lover who wrapped Eben in love in heaven has opened His arms in love for us here.  He was a carpenter and itinerant preacher who opened His arms wide on the cross in the greatest display of love ever.  He has been resurrected and today His arms are extended toward us with the desire to wrap us in His embrace of lavish love.

I was young and I am now not so young.  In my years I have never met anyone who truly sought the source of Love who didn’t find Him.  And in finding launch into the process of being transformed into an agent of His love.

Lord, I ask that you wrap your love around each person who reads this blog today.  Give them a taste of Your love.  For those who don’t yet have a relationship with you I ask that you give them that nudge, that hope, that tingle, that piece that they need to have the faith to reach out for you.  I ask that you give them a practical next step to take to begin living in a love relationship with You.  For those who already know you, I ask that you give them a double-shot of Your love today that they may share it with many others today.  Father, You are so wonderful, so glorious, so amazing.  I stand in awe of You this day.  And I thank You for Your love.

Have a blessed day my friend!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts