Missing the Key Ingredient

Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted , and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up. James 5:8-10 (KJV)

How often I have approached God with my sin and gotten no farther than merely confessing it. I would admit what I had done, agree with God that it was wrong, ask His forgiveness, and walk away feeling like the child who had just had a meeting with the principal concerning classroom misconduct. I struggled to sense forgiveness and acceptance. But I also found I walked away unchanged. What was missing? The entire middle section of this passage.

I often saw my sin and need of cleansing but failed to possess the affliction, mourning, and weeping. To see my own wretchedness and be broken over it to the same extent that God is grieved over it. For any who have sat under harsh, rigid, and legalistic teaching this whole topic only appears to be an invitation to shame and condemnation. We struggle to see God in any way other than the way He was when He appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai to give the Ten Commandments. It is foreign to see Him as the father of the returning prodigal. Watching and waiting and then embracing with open arms.

God’s response when I draw near to Him is that He draws near to me. When I humble myself before Him, He lifts me up! But part of the drawing near and humbling myself is found in seeing the seriousness and wretchedness of my sin. It involves being honest with myself and with God. No excuses, no blaming of others, no avoidance of the real issues.

This will be hard and nearly impossible if I see God with a scowl on His face, arms folded, cold, detached, unapproachable, and distant. Freedom comes when I approach Him with sorrow and brokenness and see Him as loving, accepting, and forgiving. It starts with honesty, transparency, and openness. God already tells me how the meeting will end and that in itself should help me to approach Him with genuine confession and repentance.

Father, I am still in the process of learning these truths. You teach me with such persistence, patience, and gentleness. Thank You that while You condemn my sin You love and accept me! Amen.

Confident Living

Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. Psalm 27:14 (KJV)

I have spent the last number of weeks brooding over a situation I know I will soon be facing. Turmoil, fear, and apprehension have marked my internal world because I did not feel I had it in me to walk with confidence and I doubted there would be favor shown to me by a particular person. This morning the Lord has graciously given me Psalm 27 to ease my mind and realize where strength, confidence, and assurance will come from. It is in looking to Him! All that David is saying in this Psalm is meant to be more than just nice words and wishful thinking. It is meant to infuse me with courage and strength.

Like David, I must make some proclamations about God that will in turn permit me to stand with certainty and poise. He is my light and salvation. My hiding place. My teacher, leader, helper, and deliverer. He is the one I seek and desire. He is the one who will take me up and set me upon a rock of security. I seek His face, His mercy, and His answers. I long to walk in His ways and experience the plain path He has carved out for me! While the enemy has sought to distract and discourage me with self-doubt and an anticipated negative reaction of another person, God is encouraging me to center my thoughts and focus on Him! The answer lies in Him. The confidence comes from Him.

Verse 14 gives me the prescription for a strengthened heart. Wait on the LORD. This is not just an act of biding my time until God intervenes. The true sense of the word is that I bind myself to God, look to Him, and place my expectations in Him. His desire is that I stand in confident trust and reliance upon Him. His message to me this morning is, “Connect with Me and I will more than see you through the very thing that has you perplexed. I will give you songs of joy and praise to sing!”

What an offer! Delight instead of despair. Confidence instead of confusion. Victor instead of victim. Singing instead of sadness. His thoughts really are higher than my thoughts!

Father, I love it when You give me counsel and advice! How You must delight in knowing that I am about to take in truth from You. Thank you for housing treasures in Your Word. I walk with a fresh boldness because of You. Amen.

God's Solicitude

Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you. I Peter 5:7 (KJV)

Armed with five Bible translations, a Thesaurus, and a couple dictionaries I decided to dig through this verse to find the treasure. It is rich with meaning and has spoken volumes to my heart. To think that I can hand over to God anything and everything that has me in turmoil with the realization that He is interested in me and I matter to Him, leaves me feeling cared for and carried.

Often times our English words are so broad that we can lose their full impact. My cares are my anxieties, worries, concerns, heartaches, turmoil, and burdens. They weigh me down, slow me down, and confine me. They consume my thoughts, deplete my energy, and hold me prisoner. Freedom comes when I realize I can give them over to God because He is attentive to my needs. His care is not one of worry and distress, but rather an affectionate, watchful solicitude. He has thoughtful or hovering attentiveness toward me. Pictures of a mother hen with her chicks or a young mother with an infant come to mind. God’s tenderness astounds me!

It is this truth that will stick with me on days when I feel rejected, abandoned, misunderstood, or unloved. When those who at one time seemed close and caring but now seem distant. When the shoulders that use to be places of refuge have become cold and unavailable. When it feels like the welcome mats to hearts have been pulled in and the door of friendship has slammed shut. When I feel untouchable to the ones who use to embrace me, accept me, and affirm me. In all those times and more, I can now hold to the truth that God Himself hovers over me with tremendous affection, compassion, and fondness. He is always ready to heal my broken heartedness, bandage up my wounded spirit, and release me from all that is troubling my mind.
Tears really can give way to joy as I enter into His rest, His arms, and His compassion. What is given to Him is never rejected. What is spoken to Him is always heard. No one but God can own such acclaim. I not only bow to Him, I hide in Him.

When I fail to see this about God, I so easily view Him as a last resort when I am hurting, worried, or fearful. May I now see Him as my ONLY resort. The One I can run to with confidence.

Father, I am learning to see You with outstretched arms ready to receive my heavy heart and troubled mind. Thank you for such love! Amen.

A Focused Life

For thy loving kindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth. Psalm 26:3 (KJV)

What I choose to focus on and walk in makes all the difference in the world to how I will live out my Christian life on a day by day basis. My awareness and acknowledgement of God’s acts of love and kindness are what will keep me from despair when I face the difficulties and disappointments of life. Living my life according to His truth is necessary if I want to live a victorious, confident, and purposeful life. My heart grieves for anyone who is consumed by the dark reality of their life and has believed every lie the enemy has thrown at them.

Today’s verse had to be lived out by such people as David who lived with a threat on his life for years, Joseph who faced rejection and imprisonment, Ruth who faced the death of her husband and famine, Daniel who was given to the lions, the three Hebrew sons who were cast into a fiery furnace, Paul who faced beatings, imprisonment, and persecution, countless Christians who faced (and still face) persecution, torture, and death. No one comes forth as gold unless Psalm 26:3 becomes their mantra on a daily basis.

In order to flesh out this verse I must be willing to see the events, circumstances, and hardships of my life dim in comparison to God’s attentiveness and God’s truth. David said “He daily loads me with benefits.” Am I alert to them? I am told His Word is truth. Am I reading it to find the truth, claim the truth, and walk in the truth? If so, this is what it will look like.

Feelings of rejection will be met with “I will never leave you.” Heartache will be met with “He is the God of all comfort.” Financial difficulties will be met with “My God shall supply all your need.” Guilt will be met with “I have put all your sin behind my back.” There is not a single thing that can happen to me today that God’s Word does not have a response for. His kind acts abound and His truth stands. Whether or not that makes a difference to me is dependent upon what I do with it.

Father, for so long I failed to see Your involvement in my life and I failed to walk in truth. Thank you for giving me a new way to live my Christian life. Thank you for outshining any tragedy and exposing any lie the enemy would seek to use against me today. Amen.

Pin-pointing My Need for Change

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. II Timothy 3:2

God’s lists are always interesting to read. If I ask Him, He will reveal to me the specific item in a list that I need to see within myself. While this particular list holds a number of such revelations, one in particular stands out to me this morning. Unthankfulness! How many of my attitudes, actions, and words can be traced to this culprit? I need look no farther than the very things I find myself grumbling and complaining about. My mother often told me that it is only possible to think of one thing at a time. She was right! I can focus on the things with which I am dissatisfied, unhappy, uncomfortable, and angry. Or I can set my mind on the many benefits and gifts God has bestowed upon me daily.

I look back at the children of Israel and am struck by the number of times they gave in to murmuring and complaining. It was not pretty or acceptable to God then and it is not pretty or acceptable to God now. While we are certainly encouraged to bring our sorrows, pain, and misery to Him, we are never given permission to allow it to govern our thinking, consume our lives, or become our predominate characteristic. It is not so much an area of circumstances or personality. It is a choosing of whether or not I will walk in obedience and cooperation with God.

So what is it that breeds and feeds this spirit of unthankfulness? Playing the comparison game. Comparing what others have to what I have or don’t have. Determining what it is I think I should have in this life…..living with an air of entitlement. Amnesia to all the things God has graciously given me and done for me. Pride, self-absorption, idolatry, and insecurities.

I could look at these thoughts and very easily be tempted to start a cycle of condemnation and self loathing. But the foundational truth I continue to hold on to is that God reveals inner truths to me in order to show me the places in me that need His touch. It is like He is saying, “Here’s the problem. Now come to me for the healing, the restoring, the transforming.” If I take Him up on His offer I will walk in freedom and wholeness. If I refuse His offer I will own shame, weakness, and defeat.

Father, thank you for an offer that is too good to pass up. Change me. Amen.

When the Words Were Spoken to Me

And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Tal-i-tha cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked. Mark 5:41,42 (KJV)

This is one of the few instances in Scripture where Jesus is called upon to heal a sick person but does not arrive until after the person has died. The people who hoped to see a healing saw a resurrection instead! They could surely attest to the fact that God’s ways were higher than their ways. While there was ’hope’ when the loved one lay sick, impossibility marked their situation at the point of death. They thought this was the instance that placed them outside of God’s ability to intervene. Once again they were witness to the fact that with God nothing is impossible.

I have come to realize that God is still intent on doing the impossible. He loves to do the very things we consider impossible and hopeless. He is still in the business of taking each one of us by the hand and whispering ‘arise’ to us. The word arise is rich with meaning. In the original language it means to waken; rouse from sleep, sitting or lying, from disease, from death, from obscurity, inactivity, ruin, non-existence. To awake, lift up, rear up, stand, take up. In Bible times it was spoken to the crippled, paralyzed, and dead. It was a life changing, destiny altering word that empowered an individual to do what was considered unlikely or impossible.

Hopefully, each of us can look back at a time when Jesus said “Tal-i-tha cumi” to us. The first time would have been at salvation when we went from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive! It was from that point that we walked away in newness of life. I still recount with joy the day it happened for me on July 13, 1973. I sensed the shift internally and knew my life had forever been changed.

Some thirty years later in February of 2004 He once again took me by the hand and said the equivalent of “Tal-i-tha cumi.” Not for salvation but for an invitation to walk away from legalism, emptiness, and distorted views of Himself. Once more I sensed that internal shift that let me know my life would never be the same.

There have continued to be times of when He has spoken that phrase to me in times of turmoil, distress, heartache, and pain. Each time I receive His words I am astounded at the ability to walk anew!

Father, thank you for such tenderness and healing. Amen.

Overflowing Satisfaction

For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Psalm 107:9 (KJV)

If I were to put this verse into my own words it might sound something like this…. He fills to satisfaction, completeness, and abundance, the soul that has a veracious appetite, and fills to overflowing and replenishment, the famished soul with bountiful favour and the best things. This is the picture God wants us to have when He says He ‘will meet all our needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.’ And when He says, ‘Come unto Me….and I will give.” It shows me the extravagance and lavishness of God’s generosity!

In this world, our souls yearn, crave, and ache for those things we want to be, do, experience, and possess. We either give up hope of ever having the longings fulfilled or we pursue them with a passion. Watch what a person invests their time, energy, and interests in and you will begin to see what it is they are longing for.

There are times when I think the only way to deal with the longings and hunger of my soul is to deny their existence or look for superficial ways to pacify them. I do not want to feel the ache that seems to be a continual part of my internal world. But God is letting me know the longings and hunger are there in order to draw me to Him. He wants me to take in the words of Psalm 145:16 that say He opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. He wants me to see His willingness and readiness to indulge and pamper my soul.

My response? I can either continue to chase after the things and people that I think will fill my emptiness or I can begin to approach God’s open hands and heart. I can either be allured by relationships, accomplishments, or experiences, or I can be captivated by His invitation for an intimate connection whereby I bring my deepest desires and needs to Him and become a recipient of His filling. What a contrast! How could I ever think those choices stand as equals? Who but God could make such an extravagant offer and be able to actually do it?

Father, use the ache in me like a magnet to draw me to Yourself. Let me finally know what it is like to live satisfied and filled to overflowing. Teach me to come to You and receive from You all that You so graciously offer! Amen.