Becoming Receptive

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (New American Standard Bible)

I have wrestled today with the idea of being the recipient of today’s verse. I have no trouble seeing my need to encourage and build up others but I often struggle to understand God intends for me to receive encouragement and building up from others as well. It is the way He has designed for the body of Christ to function and when we do, it brings Him pleasure! Although I know this in my head and can easily say it, God knows there are reasons I am still not embracing it and living out of the joy of it.

I have found that when I struggle with God’s design of things there is usually an element of fear involved. Fear draws the enemy just as blood draws sharks. He takes advantage of any insecurities and misperceptions I house within my mind. I must be willing to take the time to allow God to uncover those fearful thoughts and inaccurate views. Then I must be willing to replace them with the truth of Scripture.

God is presently crossing my path with encouragers. I see them as gifts from Him. I value the time we spend together and the discussions we have. In their presence I am safe to open up and share what is really going on inside my head and my heart. I would venture to say they know me in ways that few people do. Having said that, you would think there would be no trouble implementing today’s verse into my life. The truth of the matter is that the enemy of my soul enjoys wreaking havoc even in the midst of God’s blessings.

Just about the time I am filled with the joy and encouragement of friends, he comes along and whispers, “Better step back. You are going to become dependent and that is not good!” So the thing which God intends for good now becomes an area of shame and condemnation. That is when I need to go to God and allow Him to tell me the truth. While it is true I need to guard my heart in the area of emotional dependency, it is also true God desires to encourage me through other believers. He has given me numerous examples in Scripture of people who were greatly used in each others’ lives. While there are some things that only God can give me there are many things that relationships can give me and God is inviting me to receive them all. When I am off balanced in either direction may He quickly bring me back to the right place. I desire that my timidity be replaced with extravagant wonder.

Father, help me to receive Your love through others with abandon. I sense Your delight when that takes place. Amen.

Finally At Home

That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. Ephesians 1:15-16 (The Message)

John F. Kennedy gave us the famous quote, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” That can often times become the mantra for many churches, “Ask not what your church can do for you; ask what you can do for your church.” I spent many years thinking my main reason for being in church was to worship God, learn doctrine, and serve in some capacity. I would not argue that those are true and biblical objectives. But I often missed many other beautiful aspects of being part of a local church. Not wanting to make my church experience all about “me” I found myself struggling to become involved and at home within any body of believers.

Church, for me, had been reduced to attending, listening, remaining shallow and surface in communication, and walking out the door with my “duty” done. There was little excitement about being there and little anticipation for going. I am not blaming the churches, I am confronting a lie the enemy handed me and that I received. I had a distorted view of my place within the body of Christ and their place within my life. I wanted things to be different but had no idea how to make them different. God knew my struggle and graciously came to my aide.

I have spent the last five weeks attending a small Baptist church near our home. Each Sunday and Wednesday has been rich with Bible teaching, precious fellowship, and a deep sense of belonging and feeling at home. I have begun to ask myself, “Where can I get involved?” This place of worship is now like family to me and I marvel at how God brought it about. I would have to say, my heart was made receptive and open because of simple acts of kindness on the part of the people in that church. They reached out to me. Not to “get” from me but to simply nurture and minister to me and that has had a profound effect on me. For some it was done through hugs, showing an interest, upholding me in prayer, and just making me feel welcome. One in particular has come along side me and given me a safe place to discuss some places of pain, struggle, and strongholds. The result? I am ready to serve and minister to others out of a heart that has been ministered to. The very part of church that was minimized in my mind has been used of God to nurture me back to life and I am beyond amazed.

Father, I thank you for the believers who have been Your hand and heart to me. I am now ready to be that to others. Amen.

The Necessity and Power of Self-Talk

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. Psalm 43:5 (New American Standard Bible)

There were times David would cry out to God in difficult times. But he also knew the power and necessity of self-talk. This self-talk included questions as well as reminders. It redirected his focus and brought about internal change that acted as rungs of a ladder in order to climb out of emotional pits. We as believers would do well to follow his example.

Recently, I saw first hand how valuable and powerful this can be in my own life. After several hours of battling negative emotions, I took a piece of paper and began writing a note to myself. It was filled with reminders of truth about myself, my situation, and most importantly, my God! It is what others would have told me had they been able to come along side me to encourage me in the right direction. That would have been nice but I would have missed the experience of realizing once again that I have the mind of Christ and His Spirit dwelling in me. God wanted me to know that He will help me to draw out of my own reserves wise counsel and applicable knowledge. He is helping me to see that all the time I have spent in His Word, reading countless Christian books, and sitting under godly teaching has not been wasted. It has become a warehouse of wisdom within me and I am free to draw upon its contents at any time. The note took several minutes to write and was about a paragraph in length but the result was a shift in my thinking as well as my spirit. I had come out of my mental pit and the change was profound.

Does this replace prayer and seeking the advice of others? No. But it does give me a powerful tool to use. I have used it twice now and found the same results both times. David’s example is now becoming my personal experience and I stand in awe of the results. To say I am ecstatic is an understatement! I now plan to fill notebooks with these moments and later on have the joy of reviewing this aspect of my journey. I look forward to the moments God lets me know what to say to myself and how productive the discussion will be!

Father, my excitement is matched by my amazement. You have given me a precious key that unlocks yet one more door to freedom. I praise You! Amen.

Homesick or Home?

If they had been thinking with [homesick] remembrance of that country from which they were emigrants, they would have found constant opportunity to return to it. But the truth is that they were yearning for and aspiring to a better and more desirable country. Hebrews 11:15,16 (Amplified Bible)

Our minds usually go in one of two directions. Either we are homesick for what use to be or yearning and aspiring for what lies ahead. As believers, Heaven is our ultimate destiny but until we get there our life will entail many places or countries of God’s choosing. The journey we are on has been designed and brought about by God. How we walk that journey is our choice. Resistance to change will become a stumbling block that makes the way more painful and difficult.

I think back to the children of Israel in the wilderness and how often they voiced their longing to return to Egypt. Egypt! Their former place of slavery and misery. What were they thinking? The tests and trials of their wilderness wanderings made what should have been unappealing very appealing. The wilderness was filled with the unknown and unwanted, therefore they wanted what they left. But no matter how many times they revisited Egypt in their mind, God never allowed them to go back. Any trips back were only in their imaginations and heart. How like them I can be at times.

Although the wilderness was not the promised land, it was the place God had them at the present. But too often they failed to embrace it as such and follow God with abandon. How different the journey would have been if they had! They could have experienced the reward of anticipating God’s interventions and involvement rather than begrudging the changes in their life.

For them, it was change of location. For me, it is change of relationships. God knows my mind still houses thoughts of homesickness for individuals who use to be a part of my life and no longer are. While the memories of them will always be a part of me, God is desiring that I will now embrace the individuals who now intersect my world. They are His present gift to me and He doesn’t want me to miss the joy of knowing them and growing with them. He implores me to stop resisting and start resting in the place He has me and with the people He has given me. May I dare to do so!

Father, help me to turn my eyes toward You and then to look around at all You have given me and done for me in this present place of my life. Replace my feelings of homesickness with a sense of coming home! Amen.

After the Storm

Their life shall be like a watered garden….For I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice after their sorrow….My people will be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord. Jeremiah 31:12-14 (Amplified Bible)

Today’s verse was not my experience yesterday but it is this morning. I have long ago given up the notion that in this life I will only have good days and always have a smile on my face. Some days are just plain hard and yet God wants me to know on other days I will be like a watered garden and will experience joy, comfort, and satisfaction. My individual trials and troubles are not the end of the story. They are simply difficult moments within a realm of many precious moments.

It has become my practice after I have walked through a particular valley to glean what treasures I can from that valley. I look for the lessons to be learned and truths to be embraced. I may not necessarily see them when the tears are falling and my heart is grieving, but afterwards, when the storm has passed, I am able to view things from a different perspective. God’s voice is usually clearer to me and my heart is usually more receptive to what He has to say. Sometimes the lesson entails seeing an aspect about myself that wasn’t evident to me at the time. Skewed thinking, misplaced expectations, impaired vision, and wrong focus can become huge boulders in my path that must be recognized and removed.

This morning’s meditation over yesterday’s difficulties brought much to light. When people become my source for significance, identity, value, purpose, and worth I am standing on shaky ground. Mainly because God is the only true Source for those things. Besides, people come and go in my life. Putting such high expectations on temporary relationships sets me up for a continual sense of being unsettled and unstable. Jesus alone is my Rock and sturdy foundation. Because He does not change, what I derive from relationship with Him does not change.

The satisfaction God offers me is often disrupted because of discontentment. Wanting something I don’t have. Wanting life to be the way it use to be in certain areas. Thinking that because things have changed I will now be missing out. Once again, I have to see Who my source for life really is. If it is tied up in relationship with certain people I will definitely live with a sense of unhappiness, incompleteness, and emptiness. But when my relationship with God is the central point of my life I am able to be that well watered garden full of joy, comfort, and satisfaction. It is not a pie-in-the-sky thought. It is real life!

Father, any time I see You as my Source for all things I am able to experience the abundant life You promised. Keep that truth alive in me. Amen.

Fight For Me

Then Joshua and all Israel with him returned to Debir, and they fought against it. He captured it and its king and all its cities, and they struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed every person who was in it. He left no survivor. Joshua 10:38,39 (New American Standard Bible)

The phrases stood out to me like bright, flashing neon lights. Throughout the tenth chapter of Joshua I see the repeated message….fought against, captured, struck down, utterly destroyed, no survivor. Taking possession of the promised land entailed many battles but none were fought and won without the instructions, direction, assistance, and partnership of God. Not once were they left on their own to defeat the enemies. A few times, God did all the fighting for them but many times they were called upon to enter the battle and wield the swords. City after city fell to complete annihilation. I want such victory!

This morning I am voicing but one request to God, “Fight for me. Destroy the enemy within me.” The very thing that keeps cropping up in my life is what I want to see put to death and I am desiring that God does that for me. Some would say I must do it myself. Their words would feel like I am being sent to the battlefield of my soul on my own. I need God to help me do what I am struggling to do. I am asking Him to help me conquer and defeat the very thing I am holding on to. To help me open my hands in release. To help me let go from my heart. To kill what I have kept alive.

There was a time in my Christian life when I had no idea I could bring such a request to God. I felt He wouldn’t hear or help. But He has shown me His heart and in seeing that, I have learned to be honest and transparent before Him. His Word assures me of the perfection and display of His strength in my weakness. His hope in my hopelessness. His willingness to fight for me when I am over whelmed and over run. I am not giving up. I am simply asking Him to carry me until His courage infuses me once again. I want to embrace the journey He has for me and allow Him to bring in and take out of my life all that entails. My unwillingness in certain areas of submission and trust is the backdrop for my cry for help to Him. I am in need of Him to put to death in me the desire that still pulsates with life until it is no longer breathing (Joshua 11:14). I am asking Him to put within me the desire to fight. To release what needs to be released and embrace what needs to be embraced. To hunger for Him and His will above my own. He knows the heart behind my words as well as the places of fear. He knows I can’t see beyond right now and that my faith is shaky. And He reminds me that He is not only my Rock but my Shepherd. He will supply what I lack.

Father, You fought some of the battles in their entirety for the children of Israel. I call upon You to do the same for me now. Amen.

Continual Preparation

When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him. Isaiah 59:19b (New King James Version)

Sometimes the enemy makes sneak attacks. They have been planned out for days or even weeks and at the right moment he strikes. Other times the attack is so blatant and head on it literally feels like an overwhelming flood has hit. I find it interesting that the word flood can also imply an undercurrent. Growing up near Lake Michigan I often heard of the under toes that could pull a swimmer down quickly and the result could be tragic. Being caught off guard and unprepared was deadly for some. Spiritually speaking we must stay alert and knowledgeable to our adversary. We must know the places he tends to visit and the things he is most likely to use against us. He thrives on our ignorance of him and his techniques.

We also must stay aware of God’s actions at such times. At the time of attacks, He will lift up a standard against our enemy. This has the idea of putting one to flight and providing an escape. The enemy is put to flight and I am given a way to escape. I like that! It comforts me to know I never face a battle alone. God fights for me and with me! Without that awareness I sink all too quickly and wonder if I will ever come up for air. But that is not God’s intent. He wants to grow me up in the grace and knowledge of Himself. He wants to develop my spiritual muscles and teach my hands how to war successfully. He wants to teach me how to use the armor He has provided and to stand with boldness and confidence in Him.

I am currently learning another powerful truth. With each battle and in between the battles I am being prepared for the next one that hits. When an attack comes, I am better at fighting than I was for the last one. I take some blows, yes, but the devastation is not as profound and the duration is not as long. Discouragement over the fact that I am still engaged in the same types of battles is being replaced by the truth that I am not fighting against flesh and blood……..even when it is my own…….but I am fighting against principalities and powers and rulers in high places. I am learning to define the battle which is often easily camouflaged by the enemy. It is called discernment, walking in truth, and taking a firm stand on the battlefield. If tears are going to fall let them fall amidst praise of what I know God is doing! May God continue to awaken in me the Spirit of a true warrior child!

Father, this recent attack served as preparation for the next one. I raise my shield of faith and sword of the Spirit once again. This battle is Yours and so am I. Amen.