Timing is Critical

“…the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” Galatians 6:8-9.

It was all Zechariah and Elizabeth could pray about…all they could talk about…all they would lie in bed at night and think about. Why? What had they done to lose favor with God? Why are others getting pregnant while she remained barren? Thoughts must have swirled in their heads of how less righteous people were being blessed with children. They must have lifted prayers of repentance, not even being able to identify any sin but trying to ‘cover the bases.’ And then…one day late in their life when they least expected it…favor was granted…prayers were answered…miracles were revealed. They were expecting a baby, not just any baby but the life who would proclaim the coming of the Messiah! Only God knew how the timing had been critical. The prayers could not be answered in their younger lives for God knew the appointed time He would send His son. Thank God that this faithful couple didn’t fall away from the Lord out of bitterness and despair. Thank God that they continued to walk in the righteousness of God regardless of the outcome of their prayers. Thank God they trusted Him for ‘the proper time’ instead of taking matters into their own hands.

Why are you weary this morning? What prayer echoes from your lips daily and what dream has yet to be realized? We must sow our seeds of hope and confidence in God who knows the perfect timing for our dilemmas and dreams. Some of our dreams will be realized, while other dreams will be taken out of our hearts for God’s better plan. It is all about eternal life, not this temporal life through which we pass. Prayers do not have expiration dates on them, and are springboards for hope, faith and confidence. When we live our lives allowing God to move through us instead of constantly seeking what He can do for us we will reap amazing fruit and blessings. When we invite His kingdom to come instead of setting up our kingdom to come we pave the way to receive His harvest. Through Him we can overcome anything this life sends our way, trusting Him for the resolution.

‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ ‘Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things…your life is now hidden with Christ.’ John 16:33, Colossians 3:1-3.

The God is This, but Not of That!

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Because the Arameans think the LORD is a god of the hills and not a god of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands, and you will know that I am the LORD’” 1 Kings 20:28.

It was all I had ever wanted in life…to be a mommy and raise my little children. From the time I first cradled them in my arms and every day ...after, I spent my time arranging and orchestrating their days from beginning to end. Growing up in a Christian family, I assigned God the usual power in my life …the power of keeping us safe…the power of good health…the power of providing the financial aspects of our home. I was confident that God was the giver and lover of my family…the god of the hills. But when my daughter began running away and experimenting with drugs I entered a deep and dark valley where I failed to assign God His appropriate power. I knew He was a God of the calm but I failed to see Him with enough power to save in the dark suffering. I never gave God my complete surrender when dealing with my children. And, like most things - what we hold on to too tightly is exactly where God will frustrate our lives.

We cannot pick and choose the areas in our life where we will allow God to reign. We cannot live life trusting God for eternity but not trusting Him for our daily life. We cannot give Him our confidence over our health but not over our finances. When there are things we deem off limits to God, He will arrange circumstances showing Himself sovereign over that situation. When we see Him for who He really is…God over our children’s lives…God over our finances…God over our relationships…God over every health issue…then we will see the mighty hand of God moving in every detail of our life. It is at that moment we will truly understand just how big our God is.

Our Father is not some egotistical God who is on a power trip wanting us to see His flexing spiritual muscles. It is all about His love, faithfulness and promises for His children. His motivation for showing us His power is to give us healing from the past, encouragement for the day, and hope for the future. He wants us to be confident in every situation that He has the power to rescue, to transform and to deliver. When we really understand the enormity of God’s power we move through our battles with complete confidence in victory.

May we look back at any point in our lives and proclaim Joshua 24:17: ‘He protected us on our entire journey among all the nations through which we traveled.’

A Responding Faith

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit…But after he had considered this, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Do not be afraid to take her home as your wife…’ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded” Matthew 1:18-24.

When Bruce and I came together as a couple we never dreamed what would lie ahead of us. Our dreams only consisted of building a life together and raising a family. It was going to be a wonderful life and our gratitude was deep for finding each other. As the years would roll out before us so did the challenges of life. One of our children began experimenting with drugs and entered into a life apart from God and stayed on that path for many years. The times that Bruce and I held each other terrified for her life were times when God taught us loyalty to each other…times when God showed us the power of prayer…times when we had to navigate through the muck, but formed a deep and lasting bond with each other.

While our circumstances may have been different than Joseph and Mary’s our need for God was the same. What if Joseph had not been as close to God as he was? What if he allowed his emotions to run the situation instead of his relationship with God? He and Mary dug in their heels fully aware of the difficulty of their calling as parents. I am confident that we have all experienced the challenges of maintaining our couples’ relationship while going through painful and fearful experiences. Our success in navigating through our circumstances is based on our relationship with God. Couples must approach the throne together to ensure they will hear God correctly on the path that lies before them. We must surrender fears and emotions, allowing the Holy Spirit to help us respond instead of react. Just like Mary and Joseph, we must lean on the One who will deliver us from our painful situation. We must trust in those with whom God has surrounded us. We have become much too familiar with the story of Mary and Joseph. It was more than a sweet story of faith – it was a tough story of pain and fear. It was a story of a couple who had to work through trust issues from the very beginning…a couple who had to surrender their own dreams for their child’s life…a parent who had to watch their child suffer and lose his life.

This is real life stuff…real suffering in the hearts of real people. Life is going to be difficult in some of our seasons so we must put Christ first in our families. If Christ is the head of our family we will be carried through the tough times, and rewarded for our faith. Let us remember today that emotions react but faith responds.

Living the Dream

“The LORD, your God, who is going before you, will fight for you…in the desert…The LORD, your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place” Deut. 1:30-31.

A few years ago I had a dream that has never left me.  I knew it was an important vision, one that required documentation.  I won’t expand the dream into the details but I will share the main part of the dream.  I was standing at the window of my home overlooking the water when suddenly the sea began churning, hurling ocean creatures through the air.  Suddenly, two images appeared in the sky over the waters appearing to be in combat.  They both were images that reminded me of x-rays, and clashes of bright colors lit up around them.  I knew intuitively that the images were God and Satan and they fighting for possession of something.  It was obvious who was who based on the colors, with the color surrounding evil being intimidating and dark.  The colors surrounding God were stunning and overwhelming and seemed to swallow up the competing colors in the sky.  Things eventually calmed and God prevailed with power, glory and beauty.  I will never forget that dream and the feeling that I had while watching it.  I was completely protected from that battle as I stood on the other side of the glass.  There was no fear for I knew that God was fighting for me so I didn’t have to.  I will never know what was at stake but I am confident God did something for me that I was unable to do for myself.

There are heavenly battles brewing and being fought daily with things at stake for each of us.  As Deuteronomy states, we only have to look back at desert wars to see how faithful God was.  It says that He carries His children all of the way until we reach this place.   He doesn’t desert us in the middle of the battle.  We can all look back and see our individual places that we reached through His merciful victories.  For one of His children, this place is healing from infertility, or learning to live without a loved one.  For someone, this place is finding joy again when a spouse has abandoned another.  For some this place is discovering a new vocation after losing a job.  Still others are waiting to get to their place. 

The battle is the Lord’s and not ours to fight.  We can press our palms against the glass and watch the battle, but we can be confident in the victory being God’s.  He’s brilliant in His battle plans, victorious in His war tactics and unparalleled in His love for us.  He has fought for us before, He is fighting for us now and He will fight for us in the future.  We have no idea what is at stake regarding our lives but we have the One who knows every detail going before us. 

‘For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light’ Ephesians 5:8.

Beautiful Feet

“Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel…which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word…Otherwise, you have believed in vain” 1 Corinthians 15:1-2.

I love how Scripture can be written in context of one teaching but can encourage and liberate us in applying it to another context.  Our passage from above is expressed as the gospel of the Great Commission – our responsibility of spreading the truth that Jesus Christ was sent to die for each of our sins…did die…and was raised to life affording us eternal life in Him.  But this morning during my prayer time I expressed to God how so many things in our lives need clarification and guidance.  Many decisions on the horizon just hanging like fruit from a tree…should we pick this fruit…should we pick that one… should we reach out at all? Living in limbo…waiting for the answers…sitting in stopped traffic it seems. 

This morning our passage leapt off of the page with life for me.  When things are calm in a Christian’s life we ‘take our stand’ and encourage others to believe in God’s goodness.  We share hope through our words for others to lean on God for everything and trust Him for all things.  We remind them of the very thing we need to be reminded of ourselves when the storms move in.  We must hold firmly to the anchors of our faith.  Paul’s words are written to people who needed to be reminded of their faith and God’s faithfulness.  His words are meant to encourage us to hold firmly to the word of hope and confidence in a message that saves…saves us from despair…saves us from our worries…saves us from our own selves.  We must not only talk about our beliefs but walk out our beliefs with our feet when the pavement is burning.  Our times of uncertainly and suffering cannot be in vain but covered in gain… gain of testimony and increasing faith to share with others. 

The pavement may be burning our feet as we walk out our faith but God will call our walk beautiful when our testimonies are shared.  ‘As it is written:  How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the gospel of good things’ Romans 10:15.

Recognizing Our Banquet Table

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13.

Bruce and I are so incredibly fortunate to have been placed in the amazing families we were.  Both his parents and my parents have always shown complete love, support and provision when needed.  Even as a married couple, there were times life required us to go to them for financial and emotional support.  We went to them in complete confidence of their faithfulness for guidance and encouragement … to listen and share their wisdom…to ask and then receive.  While thankfully my mother is still alive, the other three parents have gone to glory.  There are certainly times when their absence is more greatly felt than other times.  All of us feel that void when circumstances arise and the first thing we do is to pick up the phone to gnaw on it with your loved one.  But then we remember…

As much as our parents desired/desire to be there for us and share everything they have we have a Father in heaven who desires even more.  His storehouse bursts at the seams with love to lavish on us.  His wisdom and knowledge is ours for the asking.  Everything He has He offers…everything He owns He shares.  He gave His son for each of us so why would we think He would withhold anything good from us?  The Bible states in Ephesians 1:3 that ‘God has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ’… 2 Peter 1:3-4 shares that ‘His divine power has given us everything we need…and that through his own glory and goodness he has given us his very great and precious promises so that we may participate in the divine nature.’  These are things we pray for as if we have not yet received them.  The truth of the matter is we are walking in the blessings daily which we are praying for nightly.  We have already received everything in Christ.  God tells us that once we ask for the Holy Spirit to take up residence in us we possess the ability to access the fullness of God. 

I remember a while back a preacher told me that the more He understood God the less he prayed for himself.  I was taken aback because I know that God instructs us to pray ‘in everything’ and I am a huge proponent of God being in the details.  But I think that my friend was speaking more of understanding that the majority of what we pray for has already been beautifully sprinkled around our lives.  We take things to God hoping to receive when it is already done in God.  Just as we laid out our children’s days when they were dependent on us, God has our days laid out with blessings and provisions.  That is what having a child-like faith seems like to me…rising is the morning fully anticipating breakfast already on the table from our Father and walking out His plan for our day.  ‘Because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we can pray with confidence as deeply loved and highly favored children of God who’ve been urged to ask.  We do not know what the direction will be, but we know our Father will give it. We do not know what the provision will be, but we know our Father will make it…Nothing is more appropriate than going to God to get what we lack.  But, oh the relief of realizing what bounty He’s already spread before us on the banquet table.’ Children of the Day, Beth Moore, p. 193.

A Call to Glory

“He called you to this…that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Th. 2:14.

I was just positive that God was leading me into women’s ministries at our church.  I had been approached on multiple occasions with the possibility of future opportunities in our church.  I had prayed about it, felt led to it and was even expecting it…it never came…it never happened…it never materialized.  What did happen was more of a Who instead of what…God happened.  He happened to lead me to On Eagles Wings Ministries…He happened to call me into that ministry as He was getting ready to show them His glory by opening up the heavens and blessing them.  He happened to choose me to receive from something I had neither worked for nor deserved.  For the life of me I cannot fathom why I was chosen to share in this wonderful glory between OEW and the Creator.  At times I feel like an intruder trespassing on sacred moments between two parties who have shared amazing moments.  But, I must remember that God in His ultimate wisdom called me to this. 

We cannot question the places where God calls us to join Him.  We can only recognize that we are being invited to experience a perfectly orchestrated plan by a perfect Father.  Some will bring joy and some will bring pain.  Some will bring fear and some will bring faith.  Some will bring gain and some will bring loss.  In this rollercoaster called life the only thing we can truly anchor our faith on is God.  God has been there from the beginning…He is here in the present…He will be faithful in the end.  He is an unchanging God with a relentless love and desire for each of us to transform into the glory of His son, Christ Jesus.  Going on adventure with God is accepting that we will laugh and we will cry…that we will sin and we will be forgiven…that we will expect and we will be disappointed…but that in the end we will believe and we will be reunited with everyone we were ever asked to let go of and share in the fullness of God our Father.

So while I am called to things both heart wrenching and exciting, I will consider it all gain regarding my faith.

‘For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain’ Philippians 1:21.

When Faith Finds a Hero

“But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.  Keep yourself in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ…” Jude 1:20-21.

Yesterday as Bruce and I were discussing the day I got a text from one of my best friends informing us that one of our friends’ home had been struck by lightning and was on fire.  Obviously, Bruce and I jumped in our car and went over to try to help.  Once we arrived, the landscape was covered with smoke, hoses and fireman.  Umbrellas lined the driveway as we stood and watched the battle of water verses smoke and fiery embers.  What makes this scene even more devastating is this friend lost her husband to brain cancer ten months ago.  As her closest friends arrived one by one the evening unfolded with questions…disbelief…concern for the future. 

I wanted to comfort and encourage people but couldn’t find the words or sentiments.  I felt at a complete loss to share the much needed message and salve for a time of deep injury and tragedy.  I found myself saying things that sounded like spiritual clichés…God has a plan…God will turn this to good…when we can’t trace His hand we can trust His heart.  As they came out of my mouth they seemed to lack the taste I was used to.  Nothing seemed to resonate in my heart of hearts spiritually speaking until I heard Bruce tell someone something I will never forget.  He said ‘The arm of God doesn’t extend arbitrarily.’ That was it!  Those were the words that seemed to plant my faith back on its feet.  I knew that he was saying that God in all His wisdom is in charge of every drop of water in the hoses.  He is well aware of which ember can spark into flame in an instant.  He has the perfect precision of this situation and is in complete control of the rippling effects leading towards complete resolution. He is God and He takes our pain and suffering to heart.  He has us tightly cradled in His arms when we see our lives unraveling before our very eyes. 

Last night was a night when all I could do was beg God for a Romans 8:26-27 prayer. ‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God’ Romans 8:26-27.

Bottom line we must constantly build ourselves up in our faith believing in God’s goodness and power.  We are invited to pray alongside the Holy Spirit allowing Him to form the words when we cannot express our own.  We are to reside in the loving arms of Jesus protected and cradled as adversity rages around us.  I received a text this morning from my friend who has lost so much over the past ten months.  She wrote, ‘I’ve been thanking God for this adversity and praising Him.  Where He leads I will follow.’  She is my Jude 1:20-21 example and faith has found a hero.  Please pray for her and her family and be encouraged by her faith applying it to your own adversity.  We all serve the same God and can access the same portions of His love, grace and mercy.