How to offer specific hope to someone today

October 27, 2019

Maria 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 3, Confidence, Encouragement, God's presence, God's Promises, Grace, Hope, Psalm 31, Uncategorized , , , , 1 Comment

Something Caleb Kaltenbach wrote a while back for Christianity Today came up in my prayer feed yesterday morning.  Mike and I use Prayermate to collect and ‘feed’ us prayers each day.  I had cobbled together some of Kaltenbach’s thoughts on the futility and sin of worry and composed them into a prayer for myself.  What caught my attention yesterday morning, praying again through these truths was the possibility of offering REAL hope to someone I might encounter in the next few hours.

Kaltenbach wrote: “What is the hope I can offer a fellow believer?”

He then answered: “God has already created and planned tomorrow…… “

Now that is real hope.  No matter how fraught with problems tomorrow turns out to be, knowing that God has planned every event of the day IS a relief.

But we need more.  The thought of something awful can still be fear-inducing, even if it IS part of God’s plan.

Here is the ‘more’ I must have to let go of fear. Caleb finishes his thought: “…..and He will walk with you into it.”  God promises to be present in the perplexing, the unexpected, the difficult, and yes, the AWFUL.

“Okay, ” you or the  recipient of this encouragement might respond, “Where can I go in God’s Word to SEE that this is so, that God actually teaches both His sovereign control AND His presence?”

I had to know for myself what foundation had already been laid for this claim.  With a few minutes of reflection, this is what came to mind. One of my favorite promises is from Psalm 31:15: My times are in your hands….

You know me well enough by now, if you’ve read this blog, that I love looking up the Hebrew/Greek or Aramaic meaning of our English translations.

From BlueLetterBible.com the English term TIMES is translated from the Hebrew ETH.  However, in Hebrew ETH means so much more:

  • events, ‘nows’, experiences, happy and calamitous seasons

Conclusion?  EVERY occurrence is in God’s hands.  THAT fact is enough for the Psalmist to continue:

Psalm 31:15: My times are in your hands, (so) deliver me from the hands of my enemies and those who persecute me.

I wrote that down and continued looking for more Biblical support.

A few moments later, I ran across 2 Cor 3:5 where Paul writes: My sufficiency is from God. 

Right before that verse Paul pens, “We have confidence through Christ toward God”.

What was the basis of Paul’s confidence? A phrase from his first letter to believers in Corinth points to the reason for Paul’s happy reliance on God: “but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor 15:10)

So, pulling this together for myself and because I want to be ready to offer it as an encouragement to someone else, here is how I am tucking Caleb’s exhortation into my mind for ready access:

Let’s suppose we listen to a co-worker or talk with a friend today and they have a heavy heart. We can listen and then say:

This is what helps me in times of suffering or difficulty:

  1. God has already planned your tomorrow and He will be walking WITH you through it.
  2. He promises that all your times and events are in His hands, not necessarily to prevent a suffering but to rescue and deliver you IN each situation.
  3. You don’t need to look at your insufficiency and feel afraid because, as Paul learned, Christ’s grace toward us IS sufficient for the day.

Sounds VERY good, but does it ‘work’?  Does this offer true encouragement, a life-line when discouragement hits?

I soon found out.  I left this blog post to sit until today, Sunday, when I planned to edit it.

And yesterday afternoon, the disabling spirit of discouragement attacked.  After wallowing a bit, I remembered ‘how to offer some one HOPE’!!!!

It turns out that the first person God planned for me to encourage was me.  I lay in bed talking to myself last night and was able to fall asleep.  Then, this morning, even though I woke up feeling VERY unspiritual, I again talked to myself and turned to the reading for today and prayed:

Holy Spirit, this is Your word. It is alive and full of power.  Feed me. Encourage me.  Let me see marvel-worthy things.

And He did. By grace.

The hope we offer others, I’m seeing, is best tested on ourselves.  I know intellectually that one reason we suffer is to be able to hold out God’s comfort to others, that comfort that we receive from Him.  I tend to be able to see God’s good hand AFTERwards. Hindsight IS valuable if we remember it.

 

 

 

When fear is unreasonable

July 29, 2019

Maria Discouragement, Fear, Fear of the Lord, Hebrews 2, Job 2, Psalm 112, Psalm 33, Satan , , Leave a comment

“It is sheer unreasonableness for men created by a loving God and redeemed by a loving Savior to fear any man or anything that may happen.“ Richard Wurmbrand

What do you fear? What scares you?

I fear harm to my children and my grandchildren.  Thinking about my death or that of my husband doesn’t weigh heavy on me. I think the idea of my kids and their families suffering loss or injury is more about the imagined pain to ME.  When I love someone like I love my boys and their wives, then THEIR pain is my pain.  I bet you can identify. Haven’t we all said, ‘I wish I were the one sick or suffering and not YOU!’  I think it’s because we feel helpless to relieve the pain of the other person. Maybe that helplessness hurts more than what we think is their pain.

Scripture talks about how Satan has us chained by all kinds fear as well as fear of death:

Since the children have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Heb 2:14-15

Rereading this scriptural truth makes me think if perhaps ALL my fears are actually a product of Satan’s subtle suggestions and running commentary to the 24/7 information stream we take in.  Worldwide info-tainment feeds our dramatic and sometimes perverse interest in learning about the disasters others undergo.

And when we take in all this bad news (without remembering God who is sovereign), we are more susceptible to lose our confidence in Him. One byproduct of Satan’s fear mongering is discouragement. Last week, it occurred to me that one reason I find the Christian life SO hard is because of the Devil.  He is EVIL and he has a whole army of spirits at his beck and call whom he dispatches for his deadly work.  His goal?  To kill Christians, frighten and silence them or at the least render us ineffective and discouraged. But we are God’s greatly loved and redeemed children!  We mustn’t forget.

You don’t believe our anxiety and heavy hearts might be the work of the devil?  Tell me then, why do we forget God’s truths over night?  Why do we have to read His promises each day, building back and restoring our faith to yesterday’s level of restful reliance on Him. Why is that?  Wouldn’t you think we’d remember?  I mean, I don’t forget recipes that I make frequently.  I don’t forget my French and other languages I have.  But I forget how good our God is.  I forget that He has given me a stunning cosmic identity and eternal purpose through Christ who redeemed me.

What else is all this daily discouragement but the death of certainty?

Even though discouragement creeps in daily, recognizing who is at the source of my negative fearful feelings helps me a lot.

Knowing that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with ME is a relief.  Just living aware that Satan’s tactical goal is to get me to disbelieve my good Father EACH and EVERY moment increases my resolve to believe God and His Word all the more.

Drawing these thoughts to a close, if we are not to fear death or harm, is there anything we SHOULD fear? For as Richard Wurmbrand from Voice of the Martyrs commented, it is unreasonable to fear any created being or situation, whether Satan or man. Yes, there is One whom we are to fear.  We are commanded and commended to respect, be in awe of, to exercise a holy, righteous fear of the Lord.  Him alone.  This fear won’t send us cowering. This fear purifies and strengthens us.

Psalm 33:8

Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

Job 4:6 Is not your fear of God your confidence?

Psalm 112:1 Praise the LORD! How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who greatly delights in His commandments.

A writer for Christianity Today puts fearing God into a helpful context:

Unfortunately, many of us presume that the world is the ultimate threat and that God’s function is to offset it. How different this is from the biblical position that God is far scarier than the world …. When we assume that the world is the ultimate threat, we give it unwarranted power, for in truth, the world’s threats are temporary. When we expect God to balance the stress of the world, we reduce him to the world’s equal …. As I walk with the Lord, I discover that God poses an ominous threat to my ego, but not to me. He rescues me from my delusions, so he may reveal the truth that sets me free. He casts me down, only to lift me up again. He sits in judgment of my sin, but forgives me nevertheless. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but love from the Lord is its completion.

 

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