Making the most of each moment

January 5, 2011

Maria Colossians , Leave a comment

Col 3 :17   And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him

School has started again.  I was nervous yesterday, during our teacher workday.  The idea of facing 6 preps made me doubt whether I could pull it off, again.  Of course I know that I can trust God to stretch my time and help me.  But facing my fears again, I realized that in actuality, I am no better than an unbeliever.

How is that?  In writing our son Wes who just started Ranger School, I was researching the actual meaning of the Hebrew word to trust (betach-  Strong’s #982).  It is found all over the OT, but I was encouraging Wes with the Isaiah verse 26:3 – You will keep him in perfect peace him whose mind is stayed on You because he TRUSTS You.

The word for trust suggests that confident and happy feeling of peace that one has when one can rely on someone completely.  Who wouldn’t want that!

This morning as I was meditating about school, I realized that I don’t REALLY trust God, because that kind of peace was absent.  Then while listening to a sermon about Boaz and Ruth, I heard the pastor explain the extraordinary results of several small moments of faithful action on the part of Boaz.  He trusted God in ordinary moments and did what was righteous.  The marvelous results from his ordinary obedience in the moment created a lineage leading to David.  Ultimately the birth of Jesus, a descendent of David,  resulted from Boaz’ faithful and kind attitude toward Ruth.

Suddenly, in a flash, I saw that what I needed to trust God for has NOTHING to do with me being a competent teacher.  My responsibility is to act faithfully in the moment, whether that means slowing down and listening to a student for 30 seconds, really hearing the pain in a colleague’s voice and responding appropriately, thanking a friend for a kindness, ordering my desk before I leave school, adopting a cheerful demeanor, or culling all complaining from my thoughts.  If I am faithful in the small moments that come to me like the waves upon the shore, then God will help me with the bigger stuff, the French and logic lessons to plan and deliver.

The pressure seemed to lessen immediately.  My insight reminded me of an essay I read earlier in the week about the 10,000 moment rule.  You might have heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers?  He talks about how gifted performers or successful people seem to have practiced their art for 10,000 hours.  This qualification applies to the Beatles, to Canadian ice hockey players, violinists or even computer gurus like Bill Gates, you name it.  Paul Tripp’s version is less intimidating and more accessible.  He says that 10,000 moments (basically a large #) create a habit.  Each little seemingly incidental moment actually does count, because it is one more link in a chain, thereby forging a habit or character trait.

So how I act faithfully in the moment at school vis-à-vis my environment (people) is more important than my supposed-all-important-polished French lesson.  Here I’ve been stressing over my ‘skills’, when all God wants me to do is live each moment righteously (‘making right decisions that honor God’- Ruth Graham’s definition) and trust Him for the rest.

I can do that….with God’s help.  Ultimately, it’s not about me and my needs, but about the more extensive picture/ scene that is going on all around me.  God has thousands of characters for whom He is working out His purposes.  May I be faithful to the role He has me to play.

Here is the link to the piece I read by Paul Tripp:   Essay about 10,000 moments

Dead on arrival – blessings of being made alive!

January 1, 2011

Maria Ephesians , Leave a comment

Ephesians 2:5 – God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.

You know that when you were born, you were born dead.  DOA.  It is only by God’s grace that he brought you to life.

So..Now that we are alive, we are aware of two main bodily needs – the need for food and the need to be clean. And this is not just a one-time deal.  I beg your pardon for my assumption, but I would wager my husband’s retirement on my assumption that you eat every day and that you bathe somehow – whether face, hands or whole body at least once a day.  Dead people don’t do that.

But now that you are alive, you are aware that you get hungry and that you get dirty.

Here is the absolute best news.  We have access to ALL the food we want/need/ could ever desire – in the Word of God.  And……we can get washed up continuously.  OCD?  No problem. You can STAY clean.  Okay…pretty obvious about feeding on God’s word so that we can survive another day.  But how do we get cleaned up?  By confessing our continual sins…i.e. repenting!!!!

  • 1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Did you see that?  We get not only clean, but super clean – each time we dirty ourselves by robbing God of his glory (i.e SIN!)

I heard Pastor Rayburn (Faith Presbyterian Church, Tacoma) say that it pleases God the most when we come to him asking for forgiveness.  What a deal!!!  So not only can I come to God, the Father, and confess my sins – all the time…immediately…but I please him as well.  (and bless my soul – I have the Holy Spirit as my constant companion to remind me of when I do sin….should I pretend I didn’t just sin)

So, be encouraged. Our sinning is NOT an indication that we are not born-again believers, children of the Father, siblings of Christ and co-sharers of the inheritance.  The fact that we are hungry and that we notice we are dirty MEANS the opposite. And we don’t have to go hungry, go dirty.  God WANTS us to feed/ get cleaned up.  Now that is GOOD news!

**

If you have read this far, then here is an announcement.  My husband as spiritual head of our family and of me rightfully pointed out that I was displaying a fair amount of pride in shooting out daily emails and forwards of ‘good stuff you should know’.  It amounts to me thinking that I know what is best for you.  He is right.  His loving observation and correction struck home. I believe that the HS is working through him to tell me that I need to fast from that ego-enhancing behavior.  My prayful plan is that I will just post a blog and no more.  For those who find it, subscribe to it, seek it out ( via the Holy Spirit) I will trust that it is meant for you all.  I resign, at least today, from pretending to play the role of Holy Spirit to you.  God help me to mean it!

 

Are you starving? – a new kind of Diet

December 29, 2010

Maria Matthew , 2 Comments

Jesus said in Matt 4:4, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”

Are you hungry for God’s word?  If you think you are not, that is probably an indication of just how anemic, how weak and how starved you truly are!  But if you’re hungry, why aren’t you eating?  Because you have an enemy who is determined to do whatever it takes to keep you from being nourished in God’s word.  If you are fed regularly, then you might become an effective Christian.  He doesn’t want that.

Satan’s favorite thoughts to plant in us are:

  • I don’t have time….
  • I don’t really feel like it……
  • It’s kind of boring…….
  • It’s so overwhelming, that I don’t know where to begin!

The above FEEL like our own thoughts, but they are not.  They are the enemy’s suggestions that he has silently sewn in our minds.  But we do NOT have to submit.

In view of the approaching New Year, I am offering an example from real life: a man, a West Pointer who was not only a military hero, but a Christian soldier.

The following excerpted directly from an on-line essay by Dr. John Barnett when I googled General Harrison.

“Lt. General William K. Harrison was the most decorated soldier in the 30th Infantry Division, rated by General Eisenhower as the number one infantry division in World War II.  General Harrison was the first American to enter Belgium, which he did at the head of the Allied forces.  He received every decoration for valor except the Congressional Medal of Honor – being honored with the Distinguished Silver Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart (he was one of the few generals to be wounded in action).  When the Korean War began, he served as Chief of Staff in the United Nations Command – and because of his character and self-control was ultimately President Eisenhower’s choice to head the long and tedious negotiations to end the war.

General Harrison, a soldier’s soldier who led a busy, ultra-kinetic life, was also an amazing man of the Word.  When he was a twenty-year-old West Point Cadet, he began reading the Old Testament once a year and the New Testament four times. General Harrison did this until the end of his life. Even in the thick of war he maintained his commitment by catching up during the two- and three-day respites for replacement and refitting which followed battles, so that when the war ended he was right on schedule.

When, at the age of ninety, his failing eyesight no longer permitted his discipline, he had read the Old Testament seventy times and the New Testament 280 times!  No wonder his godliness and wisdom were proverbial, and that the Lord used him for eighteen fruitful years to lead Officers Christian Fellowship (OCF).

General Harrison’s story tells us two things: it is possible for the busiest of us, to systematically feed on God’s Word. No one could be busier or lead a more demanding life than General Harrison. His life remains a demonstration of a mind programmed with God’s Word.  His closest associates say that every area of his life (domestic, spiritual, and professional) and each of the great problems he faced was informed by the Scriptures.  People marveled at his knowledge of the Bible and the ability to bring its light to every area of life. He lived out the experience of the Psalmist:
OH, HOW I LOVE YOUR LAW! I MEDITATE ON IT ALL DAY LONG. YOUR COMMANDS MAKE ME WISER THAN MY ENEMIES, FOR THEY ARE EVER WITH ME. I HAVE MORE INSIGHT THAN ALL MY TEACHERS, FOR I MEDITATE ON YOUR STATUTES. I HAVE MORE UNDERSTANDING THAN THE ELDERS, FOR I OBEY YOUR PRECEPTS. (119:97-100)”

**

We are well-acquainted with how tempting it is to make a New Year’s resolution.  We also tend to think about the concomitant disappointment that follows when we break it.  But this is different. You CAN resolve to read your Bible every day and not fear.   As Christians, we have the gift of repentance as a WONDERFUL tool.  So if you miss a day, repent, ask for God’s help and begin again.  Keep Satan’s offense in mind.  He would love for us to miss a day and have that turn into a week and then in despair give up.  His seed/thought is ready to be fertilized in our souls, “I’m just not the kind of Christian who can consistently read her Bible” NOT TRUE!!!  Fight on!

Post a comment or send me an email if you would like me to pray that you would stay committed!  We need each other’s prayers.

May God bless and enrich your spiritual mealtime and put MEAT on your bones through regular feeding in 2011.  Bon appétit!

 

Longings and disappointments – a middle-aged perspective

December 24, 2010

Maria Ephesians, Hope, Peace, Psalm 16, Thinking Leave a comment

Psalm 16:11  You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.

Sometimes I think about my dreams, the things I still long for but realistically probably won’t see or experience now that I am 53.  I love foreign languages.  One of my most favorite things to do is to speak and learn more about a language.  French is the language I know best, so I love it the most.  Then comes German, for I lived in Germany several times as a child and young adult.  I studied Russian in college and have recreationally played with Spanish.  Any of them are fun and I would probably feel the same way were I to learn Turkish or Chinese.  The pleasure that comes from communicating with others and discovering interesting aspects of the language runs deep with me.

My teenage dream was to marry a Swiss man, not because there is anything inherently special about the character of the Swiss.  What the Swiss have going for them are 4 national languages.  If I lived in Switzerland, my children would have been at least tri-lingual, or so my pipe dream went.

But thanks be to God who superintends and directs my life.  I am grateful that before the foundation of the world He selected Michael to be my husband.  And Mike does speak some German and is very willing and eager to grow his French vocabulary.  He is a dear man who encourages me.

Yet, here I live in Newport News, Virginia.  It’s not France.  But I do work in my area of passion.  God has been kind and provided a vocation of teaching French.  I have travelled some and both our sons learned French. Yet….my dream still is to live again in a French-speaking (or other language) area, where I could speak daily in a different language.

So I was pondering longings, gifting and God’s reason for blessing us with them.  I’m sure each one of you could quickly talk about something you had thought you might be doing by now, an unfulfilled dream.  Maybe it is for a certain family status, or career position or opportunity to use a talent.  Maybe you expected your health to last longer.

Here is what I have concluded.  This life, as the Bible teaches us, is brief and fleeting, as James reminds us in 4:14 – Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

But, for believers, for those redeemed and rescued by Christ, we have eternity with God to look forward to.  And maybe, just maybe, the interests/talents/desires/longings planted in us might be meant for fruition in the later life, the one that will last forever.

Maybe my facility and enjoyment of foreign languages will be satisfied when I share in praising God with brothers and sisters from other tribes and nations?  Maybe my husband’s joy in singing and using his voice will find its full expression in heaven. Maybe his pleasure in thinking and writing clearly will be heightened beyond his expectations as he records God’s thoughts or communicates something required by God.

Randy Alcorn has written a book about Heaven, entitled just that.  He paints a picture of saints being very busy in the next life.  His scenarios are biblically based even if they are a bit stretched or amplified.  But who is not to say that the good work that God began in us here on earth is not part of a much larger blueprint?  Is it unimaginable that our particular personality, skills and interests would be part of a master plan that goes WAY beyond what we have thought?

So let us choose NOT to be discouraged, NOT to sigh with longings unfulfilled and NOT to settle for the ‘realistic’ view.  Remember that God is able “….to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph 3:20-21)

Merry Christmas!

 

Is cleanliness truly next to godliness?

December 20, 2010

Maria Attitude, Colossians, Thinking , Leave a comment

Set your heart on things above…..set your minds on things above, not on earthly things….Col 3 : 1-2

My relationship with housecleaning :

  • Off and on for many years, I paid someone to clean every week.
  • For years I scoffed at my husband’s standard of cleanliness and attributed it to growing up with a super-zealous mom.
  • We had marriage problems and I repented of having minimized something important to my husband.
  • Then money got tighter and I started cleaning myself.
  • Then I started identifying myself with how clean my house was.
  • Then podcasts took over my life and I looked forward to cleaning on Saturdays and filling up on sermons.
  • Then one day I heard something on a podcast that helped to shift my focus on what is truly important.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a picked up house and I do invest 3 hours a week in systematic but minimal cleaning.  But I don’t look at the baseboards.  I don’t look at the grime on the blinds.  I don’t look at the chipped paint of the indoor window sills.  Why?

In view of eternity, this house of mine (actually not my house, the bank lets us live in it as long as we keep up with the mortgage payments) will not last.  It will get burned up when we get a new heavens and a new earth.  So why attempt to hold to a standard of ‘new-looking’, if what we have on earth will not last?  If entropy is a natural law set in motion by God, then it makes sense that physical things (houses as well as humans) will deteriorate.  Physical things wear out over time.

So I clean every week, grateful to have a house, grateful to have the energy and time AND podcasts to keep me company. Yet I clean within reason, within the context that I need to be a good steward of possessions, yet husbanding my resource of TIME as well.  My identity does not derive from being an excellent housekeeper.  That would be idolatrous!

This eternal mindset is useful in other areas.  Mike and I dream of a retirement house in the hills of Virginia.  We often rehearse with one another the specifics of this mountain retreat.  It will be smaller than where we live now, but it will be sturdier, built to last, good quality materials.  All of a sudden, today, I pondered:  Why?  Why does it need to be of better quality (read more costly) materials?  Why would I want it to last?  It’s going to be burned up, too!

Didn’t Jesus say that about the temple?  When he mentioned in passing, as recorded by the gospel writer John, that he would destroy the temple and raise it up in 3 days, the people laughed at him.  The temple, renovated by Herod the Great for the 2nd time in history, was too solid, too well-built for that!  Hmm…so what was the point of fortifying a structure?   Was anyone obeying God specifically here?

So, if the temple was not meant to last forever, neither is anything else.  That means my house won’t last, my body won’t last, my collection of XYZ won’t last.  So why make something temporary so critical to my happiness or even my identity?

Instead, God calls us to focus on what WILL last, “things above”.  Paul reminds us Christians that we have already died. How is that?  Our old natures have died and our old way of thinking has died.  We have died to the mindset of this world that says what is tangible and visible will last forever.  Wrong!!!  All that will get burned up.  But we who are born again into a living hope have our lives safely hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ appears at the 2nd coming, we will also appear with him, in GLORY!!! (Col 3:4)

And that kind of glory needs no polishing.  I don’t have to work at it.  That is GREAT news.  So…let us hold loosely to stuff. Instead, let us invest our time and energy in people.  They are what matter. They will last forever, in one place or another.  The more people with whom we share the Gospel, the more permanent friends we will have in heaven.

PS:  I still look forward to our mountain home, but I hope we will use this reasoning to guide our selection of building materialsJ

“Far as the curse is heard” – applying Oswald Chambers

December 13, 2010

Maria Peace, Prayer , , Leave a comment

First – here is Oswald Chambers’ post for 13 December – I’ve cut just a few sentences to make it shorter.

“Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” Luke 18:1

You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption;  (otherwise – my word) you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings…… In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance. ……..

Our work lies in coming into definite contact with God about everything, and we shirk it by becoming active workers. We do the things that can be tabulated but we will not intercede. ……

The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul is patched up, a soul must get through into contact with the life of God. Think of the number of souls God has brought about our path and we have dropped them! When we pray on the ground of Redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.

My application –

Reading this exhortation to pray on the basis of the redemption made me realize how SHALLOW are my prayers.  Normally I pray, “Dear God, please bless Sally and help her with her busy day.”

That’s a wimpy prayer.  Come on, Maria, you can do better. Put some muscle in that prayer! Pray like you mean it!  Here are the two options, depending on my friend’s status with God:

  • Lord, you have paid the price to rescue Sally from being under the curse of God’s justifiable wrath.  She now has peace with God and access to His throne and you as her heavenly intercessor. Awaken her awareness of all the spiritual blessings and promises of future grace at her disposal because of the work you did at the cross.  Help her to remember THIS TREASURE. Remind her of your promise to provide all the grace she needs for each need this busy day.

Or for a friend who is not yet a believer

  • Lord, thank you for the painful need (whatever the circumstances) in Sally’s life.  Continue to make her aware of her inability to handle life on her own.  Open her eyes to the real and present danger of living under the curse of God’s wrath.  May she SEE Jesus and realize that through his death on the cross, he absorbed the judgment due her.  May she embrace and receive that act on her behalf as the most amazing gift of all.  May she then treasure her new relationship with God and learn to come frequently and easily to your throne with each detail of her life.  May she learn EARLY that she is not meant to handle life on her own.  Thank you for this circumstance in her life that you are using to bless her.

Please pray that I may care enough about my friends and family members to invest this kind of time and energy in praying for them.  And pray for me this way!

What if we were enemies of God?

December 10, 2010

Maria Attitude, Doctrine, Gospel, Life , 2 Comments

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”  1 Pet 1:3

Being a Christian is not just about having eternal life. I don’t mean to minimize that inexpressible gift, but I want to highlight how belonging to the family of God makes a difference while we are in this earthly, natural body.

Imagine for a moment what it would mean in your life and mine if our relationship with God were different.  You do realize that everyone has a relationship with God.  You are either an enemy of God or a friend of God.  This is no ‘either-or fallacy’.  Those truly are the only two choices. Friends of God enjoy significant benefits during their 80 + years.

Once God has reconciled us to Him through faith (that is: knowing, believing and relying on His work at the cross), the benefits kick in. To appreciate what they are, let’s look at the life of someone who does not belong to God, someone who has not been born into a living hope.

  • He has no over-arching purpose in life that is bigger than him.  Life is just what he makes it.  He creates his own meaning.  But this imaginary meaning is meaningless because it is not anchored in any reality.  It cannot be anything other than wishful thinking.
  • When troubles, violence, pain come, he has no way of making any sense of them.  He is at the mercy of all that may upset his fragile life and harm those whom he loves.
  • By the time he has launched his family and is on the other side of the career curve, he begins to ask himself, “is this it? …so now I just look forward to retirement and then death?”
  • The above point applies only to those who are honest.  Most people push those hard questions away and fill their lives with  ‘stuff’ or ‘experiences’ or a new relationship, trying to generate some ‘joie de vivre’
  • He has nothing and nobody but himself to rely on in the final analysis.  An honest enemy of God lives with existential loneliness.
  • He has no access to any supernatural power.  He is left to battle sin in his own flesh.  Psalm 16: 3-4 quotes God as saying,

“As for the godly (the saints) who are in the land, they are the excellent, the noble, and the glorious, in whom is all my delight.  Their sorrows shall be multiplied who choose another god; their drink offerings of blood will I not offer or take their names upon my lips.”

I can’t imagine anything worse than to have God deliberately choose to remove himself from my life.

 

As adopted children of God, however, we are blessed more than we realize.  Here are a few privileges of belonging to God’s family:

  • We have access to EVERY spiritual blessing in Christ  (Eph 1:3)
  • We have been given fullness in Christ  ( we don’t lack anything)  (Col 2: 19)
  • All the promises of God are a resounding “Yes!” in Christ (they are available to us)  (2 Cor 1:20)
  • We can ask for wisdom when we need it (James 1:5)
  • We have already been given GRACE, PEACE with God and everything we need for life and for godliness (2 Pet 1: 2, 3)

The list could go on and on.  But what I treasure is an understanding of the purpose of life, how to make sense of life.  Life delivers hard, painful blows (Jesus even promises this) but we know that nothing happens without God allowing it.  His Word tells us that He uses all our experiences, bringing out of them good for us (and others) and glory for Himself.  I can trust God.  I don’t have to understand why things happen, but I know WHO is in charge and that He is trustworthy.

Furthermore, the fact that average earthly life of 3 score and 10 years of is just a blip compared with the REST of unending life with God in a different dimension  both anchors me and fills me with joyful anticipation.  The best is yet to be.

The Gift of Waiting

December 4, 2010

Maria Peace, Prayer, Psalm 40 , , Leave a comment

Ps 40 :1-3  I waited patiently for the Lord.  He turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud & mire. He set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.   He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

**

I’ve been waiting a long time for God to act in my husband’s life about a particular need.  He’s always felt frustrated with work. He hasn’t found a place YET where the fit was good, where he could blossom, grow and contribute in a way that brought him joy.  Nonetheless, he has continued to work hard, amply providing for our family.

So I have prayed for years and waited, watching expectantly.  I have learned how to pray, how to nurture that humble attitude that commands us to cast all our cares on the One who loves us.  As I have matured during this wait, I have practiced casting those anxieties back onto God.  My prayers for my husband have grown very specific, that by this provision of an appropriate job, God would open rivers on bare heights, bring dead bones to life, turn his gloom into noonday and exchange mourning for joyful oil.  And I wait, patiently.  Through years of learning to pray, trust and wait for God to reveal His solution, my confidence in Him has grown.  Here is how that has transpired.  And I think this may be one benefit to waiting.

While God tarries in this situation, I am encouraged each time He DOES answer prayers among brothers & sisters in Christ.   I am blessed to be attached to a church family, part of which is Calvary Reformed Presbyterian Church in Hampton, VA and part of which is the wider body, the near and far-flung Christian friends & family.  I hear answers to prayers on a regular basis.  Each time God acts in someone else’s life, my faith in Him grows deeper.  He IS who He says He is.  He DOES act according to His word.  Hallelujah!

Even though our verse of the new song hasn’t been written yet, the larger choral number is nevertheless being assembled as more and more Christian friends are pulled out of their own pits.  And I keep my voice warmed up to sing that hymn of praise about our particular need.

Evidence of empty pits

  • Recently conceived triplets for a couple who has prayed long & hard
  • A teacher to fill a school vacancy.   The 2 ladies who did double duty to ‘cover’ that class have kicked off their shoes to dance the King David Jig
  • A recovered West Point ring for a friend’s son
  • A reconciliation and warming among two elders in another church
  • Business leads and contacts beginning to come in for a young entrepreneur
  • A report of ‘no more cancer’ for a student’s mom
  • A friend’s change in medication that has made a big difference in chronic fatigue
  • A local job and promotion for a student’s dad when he was going to have to move away
  • Deployed friends’ safe returns
  • The miraculous arrival of an unpilfered container to missionaries in Africa

Each time God answers one of these prayers, I rejoice and my resolve to ‘hypomeno’ (persevere, abide, endure with joyful patience, hold on TIGHT) grows.

I know that God has our best interests at heart, even if that means that He doesn’t answer this prayer the way I have asked.  Thus I can rest in the fact that we have the God of Jacob, the Lord of Hosts sovereignly at work in our lives.  Surely the lessons learned in the process are priceless treasures.

And speaking of treasure, in closing I’ll quote a curious verse that is growing dear to me:

Is 33:6 – And He (Yahweh – the Lord) shall be the stability of your times; a wealth of salvation, wisdom and knowledge.  The fear of the Lord is your treasure.

This fear of the Lord refers to a CORRECT view of God and thus treating Him as He is: sovereign creator and Lord of us all.  When we begin to value and love God for who He is, then we begin to realize the treasure we have.  Who would not want to be in the correct relationship with the Creator/Artist who designed and chose us?  Since we are His creation, He will ensure that we fulfill the purpose for which He designed us.

Be at peace.

 

Following my own advice when discouraged

November 16, 2010

Maria 1 Thessalonians, Attitude, Faith , , Leave a comment

Rejoice always, pray continuously and in everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for Christ. 1 Thess 5:16-18

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”, so goes the folk wisdom. Only in my case, what I’m preaching to my gander, I need to follow myself.

My beloved is depressed due to a job he can’t stand and much uncertainty surrounding it.  He feels stuck because he needs to endure 3 more years in this job to qualify for a small pension from the government.  His body reacts with physical symptoms due to his dark gray feelings. His body’s response deepens his depression.  It feels like a vicious circle.

I spend time searching scripture to encourage him with God’s word.  Verses like:

  • Ascribe to the Lord power and strength  (i.e. don’t build up the circumstances and make them seem insurmountable)  (Ps 68:34)
  • But as for me, I will look to the Lord and confident in Him I will keep watch; I will wait with hope and expectancy for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me! (Micah 7:7)
  • Though the fig tree does not blossom….. (my version – though life is REALLY HARD right now)….yet will I rejoice in the Lord.  (Hab 3: 17….19)
  • As a man thinks in his heart, so he becomes (Prov 23:7)
  • I can do ALL things through Him who strengthens me (Phil 4:19)
  • I pray that the eyes of Mike’s heart may be enlightened in order that he may know …….. his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead. (Eph 1: 18-19)

But when my husband doesn’t respond to my encouragement, I can fall into feeling down too!

But wait a second!  I’m being two-faced then.  Who am I to succumb to my feelings?  If I am called to be my husband’s Ezer, his companion to help him, then God has equipped me.   I don’t have to battle his depression on my own!  I don’t have to let it bring me down.

If I’m encouraging Mike to change his self-talk, then I need to listen to my own advice.  I need to talk to myself, tell myself Truth from God’s word and not listen to my feelings which are based on incomplete knowledge.  I need to rejoice that God has given me the power to encourage Mike.  Paraphrasing Paul in 1 Cor. 15 “I worked hard…yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me!”  When I feel weak like I can’t summon up any more encouragement for Mike, I MUST tell myself the truth. I don’t have to succumb to discouragement.   Yes there is trouble in life, but Christ is with me to fight on.  I might not sense that I have the resources or energy to be an encouragement tonight, but I CAN trust God that He will provide manna for the evening, not now, but IN THE MOMENT.  “As is my day, so too is the STRENGTH, the REST and the SECURITY that God provides” (Deut 33:25) I can count on Him to provide manna in the moment.

Putting on my belt of truth and lifting up my shield of faith in Christ to ward off the fears and doubts with which the enemy so delights in barraging me.

“Your faith has saved you; go in peace”– or whose faith is it?

November 9, 2010

Maria Faith, Forgiveness, Luke Leave a comment

First some context : Here is the tail-end of Jesus’ remarks in Luke 7:50 to the Pharisee who invited him to dinner      Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”  The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

I’ve been learning about what faith is and what it is not.  In the above story one could commend the woman for having faith.  After all, Jesus refers to it as HER faith.  Something she possesses.  But did she originate the faith?  Should she be praised for something that she stoked, nurtured and exercised in seeking out Jesus?

What would we think of a person who enters a marathon in a wheel chair and completes it entirely thanks to someone who pushed him?   Would we say, “Congratulations!  Your fast finish has qualified you to place!”

No, we would clearly see that his finishing the race was entirely due to this other person.

So it is with the faith of the ‘sinful’ woman.  This pistis (Greek) or faith was given to her by God.  That is what regeneration is, what being born again is all about.  It’s when God opens our eyes and ears and deposits faith in our soul.  Then we can see the need and feel the compelling desire to repent; then we can feel safe in approaching Jesus.

What is remarkable is that since WE ourselves don’t generate this faith, we don’t have to fear losing it.  It is a gift placed in us by God. Furthermore, He deposits the Holy Spirit in us, to assist our use of that gift.  If you have faith no bigger than a tiny seed, it is enough.  Imagine nuclear power and the miniscule fission process that spontaneously occurs.  But the outcome is huge.  So it is when God makes us alive, gives us faith and provides the Holy Spirit as a helper.

I’ve been meditating on Jesus’ prayer to His Father in John 17.  He commends the disciples as those whom the Father gave to him and men who obeyed God’s word.  We quickly think of Peter and his denial of Jesus and the brothers James & John who were concerned about their right-hand positions in the Kingdom and the fearful group in the boat faced with the threatening waves.  Do these actions qualify as obeying God’s word?   Of course not.   So what could Jesus mean?

I think Jesus is referring to the fact that the disciples retained their faith.  They continued to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, God’s son.  Their actions didn’t always comport with the behavior one would imagine of a proper disciple.  But in God’s book, they were men of faith and that is the grid through which He judges us.

But….it’s a rigged system!  We can’t possibly fail!  God gives us faith.  He gives us supernatural help, guaranteeing our success exercise of it.  Finally, He commends us for keeping this faith.  It’s a win-win situation!

There’s a verse in Jeremiah 31: 6b where God promises His people that, “…. your work will be rewarded……”    We have the best deal possible.  What God requires of us, we can’t possibly fail to do, because His constant resources, although invisible, are a guarantee that we will please Him.  On top of His approval, He will also reward us.

The supreme work we are to do for God is to believe Him, to exercise the faith with which He gifts us.  All else is subsumed underneath that raw trust.  We have to get the order correct.  Believe, rely on Him and do what He commands, trusting that He will enable us to please Him.  We can’t measure the outcome and determine if we have pleased Him, if we have exercised faith ENOUGH (whatever THAT means!).  But we can trust that what warms His heart and makes Him rejoice and beam as a proud Father is our toddler-like stabs at faith. Picture Him applauding us for walking in faith while our hands are being held by the Holy Spirit.  Selah!

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