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God

Future Hope

February 23, 2009 · 5 comments

I can hardly stand to watch the news anymore.

Every time I turn it on all I hear is…

The economy is tanking, and everyone is loosing their job, and everyone is loosing their house, and  no one has health insurance, and this company and that is closing it’s doors, and my generation will be the first to do worse than our parents, and will the war ever be over, and there are bad people who don’t like us and want to hurt us, and climate change is going to kill us all, and the world is coming to an end and the sky is falling, and, AND, AND!!!

After 10 minutes of news I can feel the fear and panic and doubt rising inside of me. I just want to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and wait for the inevitable end to come.

It is bad.

Especially if your are one of those people who lost their job or their home.

But all this 24/7 pessimism being spewed across the spectrum of  news casts makes it even worse. According the pundits, the rest of us who still have jobs and homes are just barely hanging on to the edge of the cliff .

Who will fall next?

You?

Me?

It’s just a matter of time they say.

But what about hope?

It can get better.

It will get better.

It has to get better.

When the anxiety starts to set in, I remind myself that in the midst of all the wreckage from the walls that seem to be crumbling around me there is hope.

My God is bigger than our government, he is bigger than our economy, he is bigger than any problem I could ever have.

He is bigger than all of 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.” Jeremiah 29:11

Oh, how I cling to that promise these days!

I trust the Lord to care for my family. He will not leave us alone to cower in the dark under the covers. He will provide and keep us from harm.

And I know no matter how bleak it may seem down here, my eternal hope and future is secure with him.

When the bad news is starts gettting to me I stop looking at the television, and start looking up.

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Breaking and Entering

February 9, 2009 · 4 comments

There’s that cliche’, “When God closes a door, he opens a window.”

While I do ascribe to God, I don’t normally to trite sayings like that. If I’m having a rough go of it, something like that is the last thing I want to hear.

But yesterday, I got a real life object lesson that could not have demonstrated that old adage any more clearly.

The weather has been gorgeous for mid-winter around here. After weeks and weeks of temperatures near zero and inches and feet of snow, the sun finally came out. It was a bright 42 degrees on Sunday. That may not sound warm to you, but believe me, it’s all relative.

I took David outside to ride his bike in the driveway where the snow had completely disappeared. For Christmas he received a horn to put on his bike, and hadn’t had chance to try it out yet. I brought the bike up from the basement where it stayed since since my husband installed the horn on the handle bars.

My hands were full of bicycle when we went out the side door, and I forgot to make sure the button on the knob was turned up. As I reached the bottom of the porch steps, I heard David slam the door behind him. Any other day I have to remind him to close the door. He doesn’t even remember to shut the refrigerator door most of the time.

I put the bike down, and ran up the steps hoping somehow the door was unlocked.

But the knob didn’t budge.

I tried the other two doors even though I knew it was pointless. We are careful to make sure all the doors and windows are always locked.

I didn’t have any keys. I didn’t have a cell phone. I looked around, and saw that the neighbors weren’t home.

My husband was away Sunday performing with his quartet. He was at least an hour from home, and even if I could have called him, his concert was due to start in about an hour. I knew my in-laws who live near by were also out of town that day.

I squinted into the west where the sun was just beginning to descend. It would be dark in 90 minutes. It would be cold again, and my husband wouldn’t be home for another four or five hours.

Then I remembered how all day that very same sun shone directly into the living room windows as it moved from the east. And after such cold and ice, the hot rays made it feel warm and stuffy in the house. I’d opened one small window just a crack to let in some fresh air!

I used a  tool in my gardening cabinet to pry the screen off. Then found a patio chair to place under the sill. There was no way at almost five months pregnant I going through that window. I helped David up on the chair, and through the window. He went around and opened up the door.

It’s just a little thing, but I do believe God was looking out for us yesterday.

We could have walked farther down the road to another house. We live in the country. Being so spread out, we don’t really know the people who live there. Hopefully they would have been kind, let us use the phone, and wait there until someone came to let us in.

While it is trite from over use, and not a passage that you’ll find in the Bible, the Door/Window adage does often prove true when it comes to God working in our lives.

But yesterday’s experience made me see it in another way. Sometimes instead of Him closing doors, we fail to unlock the door, choosing a more difficult path. Yet there it always is in the end, an open window waiting to lead us back to the door, giving us another chance to unlock it.

Yesterday the door closed. A window opened. Then the door opened again.

He is a God of second, third and fourth chances. Infinitely forgiving. Full of grace and mercy.

Even when it may seen we’ve welded the door shut and sat outside in the dark, bitter cold too long, he can open it again.

I am so glad it was too hot in the house yesterday, and I left the window open.

But I’m even more thankful for all the times, whether it was Him closing the door or me slamming it in his face, that God gave me a boost through an open window.

“How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I waken in the morning, you are still thinking of me!”  Ps 139:17

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Little Things

December 22, 2008 · 2 comments

What’s on your prayer request list?

I’m willing to bet there’s a few big ticket items.

My biggies?

A dream job for my husband that he loves and provides life long financial security for us.

That my son grows up to be a great man who’s successful and contributes to making the world a better place.

That I’m the perfect mother who never looses her temper and always does the right thing.

Sure those things are all possible. God could snap his fingers and grant my every wish. It’s certainly within his power to do so. And often he does perform a miracle or do the seemingly impossible.

But even more often it’s all the little things that he attends to that really seem to make the difference.

Sometimes a request seems so small and insignificant that I feel silly praying about it. I wonder if it’s even important enough to bother God with, or I don’t even think to ask in the first place.

But nothing is insignificant to God. And all our cares and concerns, no matter how inconsequential they may seem to us, do matter to him.

I can think of several little things in the last few weeks that, though they didn’t seem that important in the grand scheme of things, I prayed about. And I got an answer.

Sometimes it’s not about being Mother of the Year. It’s just about God granting me enough patience to get through that one particularly hard day.

Sometimes it’s not about life long financial security, it’s just about having enough cash in the bank to pay that huge car repair bill.

Sometimes it’s not about my kid growing up to be a Supreme Court Justice, it’s just about him learning his ABC’s.

It’s these little blessings that get me through the day-to-day. To me all the aswers to my “little things” add up to a lot. Maybe even more than all the big things.

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Wednesdays for Wives: You’re Worth It!

June 18, 2008 · 3 comments

So how’s your self-esteem?

In a society that puts so much emphasis on image, performance and popularity, it’s pretty easy to get your self-worth knocked around and bruised.

The mirror isn’t always a friend. Newly formed crow’s feet, extra inches around the waist, a stray gray hair or two can leave you feeling unattractive. The young airbrushed models and actresses in glossy magazines set a pretty high bar.

Maybe it’s not about your looks. Maybe it’s that you feel like a failure because you can’t figure out how to juggle work, marriage and kids and still keep a spotless house. Perhaps your cooking skills aren’t on par with Julia Child’s.

Rejection from a friend of family member can make you feel less than whole. Or if you didn’t get the PTA’s room mother of the year award. The failure and struggles of your spouse and children can get you down if you blame yourself.

Low self-esteem sabotages relationships, even with your husband. When you don’t like yourself, it makes it difficult to accept love from others. You may find yourself pushing away the very people who’s support and love you need. Your negative attitude my also cause your loved ones to back off.

Here’s the thing, you are worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of acceptance, worthy of forgiveness when you make a mistake. You’re life, no matter how boring, mundane or unsuccessful it might seem to you, is very important. Who says? The only one who’s opinion really matters, God.

God created you. He knew you in the womb before you were born.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:13-16

He sacrificed the life of his only son so that you could receive forgiveness and join him in eternity someday.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

He loved you before you loved him. He loves you even if you don’t yet know him.

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

There’s nothing you can ever do to make God stop loving you. There’s nothing you can do to earn God’s love. He gives it freely to anyone who accepts it.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

If a God who is perfect, all powerful and all-knowing can love you like that, then surely your are worthy of love from yourself and others. Even if the laundry pile is a mile high. Even if you lost your temper and shouted at your kids. Even if your last friend on earth abandoned you. God still thinks you’re worth his time.

We’re all imperfect works in progress. Let God loves you, imperfections and all. Let that love spill over into love and acceptance for yourself. Let your husband, your family, your friends love you. Open up and love them back. You’re worth it!

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Safe in the Midst of the Storm

April 10, 2008 · 0 comments

We arrived home at a quarter to midnight Tuesday after a short vacation. Tired, we all went right to bed and were asleep before our heads hit the pillows. We hadn’t heard any local news or weather reports for days. We knew rain was predicted, but that was all. Around 1:30 in the morning we were jolted out of our sound sleep when an alarm went off. I fumbled around in the dark for a few seconds trying to turn off the alarm clock, wondering how it got set to go off in the middle of the night. Then my husband realized it wasn’t the clock, it was our NOAA weather alert radio. We turned off the alarm and the message on the radio’s LCD screen said there was a severe thunderstorm warning for our area. Howling winds, heavy rain, bright flashes and loud booms confirmed that fact. But looking out the window it just seemed like a typical spring thunderstorm. We went right back to sleep.

Wednesday we learned it was much more than just a thunderstorm. An F1 tornado with winds around 100 miles an hour touched down less than five miles from our house that night, though no tornado warning was issued which would have set the alarm off again on our radio. Instead of going back to bed, we should have been taking cover in the basement.

We were far enough away from the path of the tornado that there was no damage at our our house and the power didn’t even go out. But tornadoes can change direction in an instant and travel long distances. If I’d known what was happening just down the road from us, I would have been terrified and herded my family and all the pets downstairs immediately. A few people did have damage on their property, but thankfully no one was injured.

I thank God for protecting us in the midst of the storm while we were snug in our beds thinking all was safe. Sometimes he keeps us from being batttered by life’s figurative storms of pain and strife. Sometimes he shelters us from a litteral storm. What a comfort knowing he’s there with us through it all.

If you make the Most High your dwelling- even the Lord, who is my refuge- then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

 Psalm 91:9-16

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Wednesdays for Wives: Don’t Eat that Juicy Apple of Manipulation!

March 26, 2008 · 1 comment

wednesdaysfinal.jpgAnd we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

Well ladies, this might be an unpopular subject this week. One we’d rather not talk about. A flaw in our natural character that we’d just as soon keep a secret. But I’m going to put it out there. We have a tendency to be MANIPULATIVE. Ooh, that hurts doesn’t it?

Now before you say, “Who me?”, let me support my claim.

Women have been manipulating men since the beginning of time. Grab a Bible and read the book of Genesis. Wow, whoever said the Bible was boring? That one book alone has more story lines involving the machinations of conniving women than a years’ worth of Days of Our Lives episodes. Like sands through the hour glass so were the sands of the ancient middle east.

It doesn’t take long for the manipulation to start. In Genesis chapter 3 Eve gets Adam to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Women get a little break until we get to chapter 16. There Sarai (later renamed Sara), unable to conceive, conveniences Abram (renamed Abraham)to sleep with her maidservant, and a child is born. This brings all sorts of trouble on Sara, Abraham, Hagar the maidservant, and the child Ishmael. The consequences of Sara’s failed scheme reach far beyond their generation.

Next Abraham’s son Issac, born to Sara at the age of 90 by God’s grace, marries a woman named Rebekah. It appears that she manages to stay our of trouble most of her life, until she decides to help her favorite son Jacob steal his dying father’s blessing from his first-born twin brother Esau who was favored by Issac. She comes up with the plan, and helps Jacob execute it step-by-step, even cooking the food he uses to trick Issac. Again the consequences of Rebekah’s actions are far-reaching, and those closest to the deception pay dearly.

You would think with the family history, Jacob would have learned to stay away from manipulative women, but he ends up marrying two of them in chapter 29. One he’s tricked into marrying. What goes around, comes around? And the other he chooses to marry. They are the sisters Rachael and Leah. Sibling rivalry can be difficult to overcome in the best of circumstances, but forcing sisters to share a husband is beyond the pale. Rachel is beautiful and loved by Jacob, but barren. Leah is less attractive and unloved, but as fertile as a rabbit. They spend their lives being envious of one another, and trying to get what the other has. Leah tries to manipulate Jacob into loving her by giving birth to one baby after another. She even gives Jacob her maidservant to produce yet more offspring for her. Since Rachael can’t conceive on her own, she to convinces Jacob to sleep with her maidservant to produce offspring for her. What a mess!

There is a scene in chapter 30 that beats anything I’ve read or seen on TV or at the movies. Leah’s son Reuben brings back some mandrakes from the field, plants thought to increase fertility. Rachael, still wanting a baby of her own, asks Leah for the plants. Leah at first says no, but Rachael strikes a bargain. Verse 15, “Very well, he (Jacob) can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.” Leah agrees to this. When Jacob comes home from the fields that night Leah tells him, verse 16, “You must sleep with me. I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” The Bible doesn’t record Jacob’s reaction. Don’t you think he was just exasperated and weary of his wives’ continuous manipulation?

Again this backfired. Leah got pregnant again, and apparently the mandrakes didn’t help Rachel.

Eventually Rachel did conceive. She bore Joesph and then years later Benjamin. Rachael died from giving birth to Benjamin. All of these children, born of four different mothers and raised in the original dysfunctional family, had all kinds of problems. Not the least of which resulted in 11 of the brothers selling Joseph into slavery then faking his death. If only David Caruso and his team of CSIs had been around back then to examine the manufactured evidence of the torn and bloody Coat of Many Colors.

Have I made the case that woman seem to have an innate need to manipulate the people, especially men, around them? Now most of us probably have never taken it as far as the woman of Genesis. And am willing to bet that the scheming was done in the name of “What’s Best”. We are by nature also nurturers. We want take care of those around us. Sometimes we mistakenly think “taking care” means using our resourcefulness to manipulate circumstances, and the actions of those we care for. Even Sara, Leah, Rachael and Rebeka thought they were helping. They didn’t realize the consequences of their meddling.

So, what’s wrong with taking matters into your own hands and altering the outcome of a situation? First, in doing so you’re trying to control whoever you’re manipulating, instead of allowing them to take their own actions. If it’s your husband, being manipulative is not being submissive. Secondly, and even more dangerous, is the problem that you are usurping God’s plan and not trusting him to work to work matters out.

If Eve had only followed God’s instruction not to eat the fruit she could have lived forever in paradise with Adam. Sarah gave birth to Issac at the age of 90, because God kept his promise that he made to Abraham to make a great nation from his offspring. Had she just been patient and waited on the Lord, a lot of trouble would have been avoided. When Rebekah was pregnant with the twins Jacob and Esau God promised her that Jacob, the younger one, would rule over the older, Esau. But again, instead of trusting God to fulfill his plan, she had to try and make it happen herself. And what of Rachael and Leah? What if each had been content with the blessings God did give them? Rachael happy that her husband loved her, Leah that she had children. What if they tried to live in harmony with one another rather than constantly getting one up on each other? What if they had trusted God to bring them contentment no matter their situation? Oh the family turmoil that would have been avoid had these women not been so manipulative. It never ended in anything but more trouble. And the children! Deceitful manipulative parents raise deceitful manipulative children.

So let’s take a lesson from these women. The next time you’re tempted to interfere with your husband’s life or anyone’s, ask yourself, “Is this really from God? Does this glorify God? Is this part of his plan?” As ripe, juicy and tempting as it may be, don’t take a bite out of that apple of manipulation. Put it down, take a step back and let God work. You might be surprised at the amazing solution he comes up with. I can guarantee it will be even more fascinating than Marlena’s scheme to get John back!

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In the Garden: Jesus at his Most Human

March 21, 2008 · 0 comments

The night before Jesus’ death on the cross, after The Last Supper, he goes with his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. It is there that we see Jesus at what I think is his most human. It is a poignant, touching and even heart-wrenching scene. While Jesus was holy, perfect and with out sin, he was not with out the ability to feel emotional and physical pain.

Mark describes this event in chapter 14 of his gospel. Jesus tells the the disciples,

“My soul is over-whelmed with sorrow to the point of death,”

and asks them to keep watch while he prays. The Mark says after that, “he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him.”

Mark records Jesus’ prayer as this,

“Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Luke expands on this in his gospel in chapter 22 verses 43-44 saying after that, “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

Jesus returns to the disciples only to find that they’ve been sleeping as his agonizes over what he knows will come in the morning. Two more times Jesus leaves to pray and returns to find them sleeping. The last time he returns he knows there is no other option.

“Are you still sleeping? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

Guards who work for the Jewish Chief Priests arrive. Judas points out who Jesus is by kissing him. The guards take him way to appear before the Chief Priests. As he’s being hauled off Jesus says,

“Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with clubs and swords to capture me? Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple and the courts, and you did not arrest me, But the scriptures must be fulfilled.”

Then Mark writes perhaps one of the saddest statements in the Bible, verse 50 of chapter 14, “Then everyone deserted him and fled.”

We can only imagine Jesus mental turmoil that night. He knew in a few hours he would be subjected to beatings so severe those alone should have killed him. Then he would be forced to carry his own heavy cross to the site of of Crucifixion. They would pound nails through his hands and feet to hang him on the cross. They would place a crown of thorns upon his head. They would mock him and ridicule him even as he was dying. They would offer him only vinegar to quench his thirst. They would pierce his side with a sword.

Jesus suffered real physical pain the day he was crucified. That night he is so beside himself with the burden he must carry that he feels the knowledge of it alone is enough to kill him. Of course he cried out to God, asking if there was any other way. In his prayer he calls God “Abba”.  Abba is a very intimate Hebrew word used between father and child, like our English word Daddy. The King of Israel, the Son of God, lies prostrate on the ground like a child crying out for his Daddy, asking him to spare him the coming pain.  Yet he understands the ultimate decision is God’s. He knows he must do as God commands and fulfill his plan. “Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Haven’t we all been there? Facing some insurmountable situation, at our wits’ end, nowhere else to turn? Feeling that certainly this trial will be the death of us? The only thing left to do is humble ourselves and cry out to God.

God answered Jesus by sending an angel to strengthen him. But he did not take the difficult task of dying on the cross from him.

Has God ever laid a task out before you to complete or alloed you to be in a situation that was difficult? Something you would rather not do? Didn’t you bargain with him? Beg him give you another route to take?

Jesus is in such despair the Bible tells us that he sweat blood. I have felt grief, I have felt fear, but never more than what brought tears to my eyes. I can not imagine the inner struggle it must take to cause a person to sweat blood.

When Jesus sees the armed men coming for him, he knows it is time for him to fulfill God’s plan for him. He doesn’t try to flee, he doesn’t try to physically overcome his captors. He goes willingly, even speaking with a hint of humor and sarcasm in his voice.

“Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with clubs and swords to capture me?”

To put it in today’s term, “Get real! I’ve been hangin’ around here all this time and never shown any threat of violence. Why do you think I would now? Come, on. Is all this really necessary? Let’s just get this over with!” 

In fact, before Jesus is taken off, hot-headed Peter cuts the ear off one of the men. Jesus heals him. Not the action of a hostile criminal.

Jesus is taken away and as Luke says, everyone deserted him. Have you ever been in the midst of difficult times and felt alone? Perhaps people who you thought were your friends or even family members who you believed loved you, abandoned you rather than offering their support.

God didn’t have to come to us in human form as Jesus. Jesus didn’t have to suffer and die on the cross. Surely our all-knowing, all-powerful God could have devised any number of ways to cleanse our sins and provide our salvation. Or God could have just smote us all, wiped mankind off the earth all together, and started over.

But God didn’t. He came to us as a baby with humble beginnings. He grew into a man who had no possessions or home. A man who gave his life in the most terrible kind of suffering for us that we might live eternally with him in Heaven someday.

God loves us. He loves us so much that he was willing to walk more than a few miles in our shoes. No matter the hardship you are facing there is always one you can turn to who understands. Jesus knows your physical pain. Jesus knows your emotional suffering. Jesus understands when you ask, “God, isn’t there any other way?” Jesus knows the paralyzing fears you face. Jesus has felt the sting of loneliness.

But even if everyone else has left you, Jesus will not abandon you. Jesus will be with you always. Jesus knows the strength God will give you to face tomorrow. Jesus knows the comfort God will bring to your grief. Jesus knows God will be faithful to complete his work.

You can not say, “Jesus, you just can not understand.” He does, and he wants to take you to his Daddy, your Daddy. He wants you to know his Father as intimatley as he does.

No Not One

Word Written by Johnson Oatman, Jr.

There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus
No, not one! No, not one!
None else could heal all our souls diseases
No, not one! No, not one!

Jesus knows all about our struggles
He will guide till the day is done
There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus
No, not one! No, not one!

No friend like Him is so high and holy
No, not one! No, not one!
And yet no friend is so meek and lowly
No, not one! No, not one!

There’s not an hour that He is not near us
No, not one! No, not one!
No night so dark but His love can cheer us
No, not one! No, not one!

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