The Moment That Changes Everything

There are moments in history that define each one of us, moments that completely change the course of our lives.  Whether they are marked by a decision or an event or an encounter, our lives look drastically different than they did the moment before.

Think about the day you got married or the day you held your child for the first time, about how much your life changed that day.  Life would never be the same from that point, would it?  Good or bad, there was no going back to life as it was before.

Think about life before 9/11.  What was life like on September 10^th, 2001?  Very different than September 12^th, for sure.

One event, and the course of an entire nation was re-routed.

One moment and everything changed.

One moment of weakness, one swallowed lie, one bite of forbidden fruit.  Sin found its way into humanity and the world was changed forever.

One choice by a man named Cain to bring not the best and first of his crops – just “some” – to make an offering to his Creator.  The choice to keep the best for himself and make an offering not out of faith in God to provide, but rather an offering out of the leftovers.  The choice to stand proudly before God, angry that his offering wasn’t found acceptable, rather than submit in humility and repentance.

This choice would change Cain’s life drastically.  The anger that began as a small seed that day grew in his heart like the wheat that he had sown in his field.  It matured into full-grown hatred, strong enough to lead him to murder his own brother.  Again, when given the opportunity by God to confess his wrongdoing, he stood proudly and defiantly before his Maker and confessed nothing

And so the consequence: the once highly successful farmer would no longer be able to coax even the scantest crop from the ground, and instead would spend the rest of his days a wanderer.  His family, too, would be sentenced to wander with him.  No home, no livelihood.  Just wandering.

But the effects of Cain’s choices didn’t end with him or his immediate family.  Several generations later, one of Cain’s offspring would become himself a murderer and proudly claim a promise God had made to Cain as his own.  It started with one choice, but the ripples of that choice continued to spread.

How different would Cain’s life have been had he chosen that day to bring the first and best of his crops as an offering?  Or if, when God disapproved of the offering, he had reacted with humility or remorse? How would his story have gone then?

Maybe there is a moment in your own life that very distinctly divides it into “before” and “after.”  Maybe it was put there by your own choice, or perhaps it was handed to you by someone else. Regardless, it changed your story.  There’s no going back, no matter how much you wish you could.

One moment and everything changed.

But there is another moment in history that can change your story again.  Oh, it won’t undo what has already been done; it won’t erase history.  But it will rob your history of its power to dictate your future. Indeed, it will redeem your history and make your story one of beauty and grace.

I’m talking, of course, about Jesus.  About the moment that he stepped back out of the grave and crushed the power of sin and death.  Forever.  I’m talking about that moment when you encountered Him – or will encounter Him – and He began to re-write your story.

One moment with Jesus and your life will never be the same.

Will it be 9/11 kind of change? Probably not in the world’s eyes. But to you…yeah, it’s that big. The difference, my friend, is that instead of looking back with nostalgia or regret or sadness, you’ll be looking to the future with anticipation, hope and joy.

Jesus.  He changes everything.

And what a wonderful thing it is when He does.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17

Press On

Hello, friend.  How's your walk going this summer?  Is there a spring in your step and a song on your lips?  Are you walking side-by-side with the Spirit, enjoying His company as you walk, taking your cues from Him?  That is such a sweet and joyous place to be, even if the road you're traveling is a little rocky.

Or are you weary and worn out from your journey, beaten up by the storms you have weathered recently?  Have the demands of the journey sapped your strength and squelched your desire to keep going?  Have you lost sight of the Spirit, leaving you feeling lost and ready to give up?

Oh, my friend, if this is where you are, let me encourage you with a piece of Scripture that the Lord has pressed upon my heart these last few months.  For I have walked where you are now walking.  I have felt in my bones and in the deepest part of my being the weariness that you now feel.  I have known what it is like to be discouraged to the point of giving up, to feel as though I have given every ounce of what I had to give. 

I, like you, have been worn out, lost and hopeless.

Praise God that He has promised never to leave us, never to abandon us!  And praise Him all the more that He is a God who keeps His promises!

EVERY. TIME.

Here is the promise He led me to, the promise I have clung to and that has become my anchor these past few months:

Hosea 6:3 ~

Acknowledge the Lord.

Press on to acknowledge Him. (italics mine)

As surely as the sun rises in the east, He will appear.

He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.

"Acknowledge the Lord.  Press on to acknowledge Him."  In the midst of our trials, our weariness, we must continue to acknowledge the Lord.  To confess with our lips that he is GOD, the King of Kings, the Ruler of all.  To live in obedience to His leading.  Even when our hearts don't want to join in, we must continue to acknowledge Him.

But it won't be easy.

Why else would there be a need to "press on to acknowledge Him?"  To press on: to keep going even when we think we can't.  To muscle our way through the exhaustion.  To keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when our legs are aching and weak.

I used to be a jogger.  I loved to go out for a two or three mile (sometimes more!) jog.  Some days were hard, though, and I would hit a point where I didn't think I could go another ten feet, let alone another mile.  It was like I hit an invisible wall that was trying to press me backwards.  But I learned to keep pushing - to press on - and break through that wall.  I almost always ended up going farther than I thought was possible.

"Pressing on" is not easy.  To press on in our faith we must be intentional.  We have to choose to continue to acknowledge God.  We have to do it on purpose.  It will require energy that we think we don't have.  It will require that we refocus our thoughts so they dwell on who God is rather than our circumstances.  To "press on" is hard work.

But here is the promise that follows this difficult instruction:  "As surely as the sun rises in the east, He will appear.  He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

Press on and you will see God.  Press on and He will appear.  He will not stay hidden - you can count on it, just as surely as you can count on the sun coming up in the east! 

God WILL appear!

And when He does, He will bring refreshment to your life just as the rain brings refreshment to the earth. 

No, more than that - He will bring renewal.  He will bring LIFE.  Just as the rain brings life to the seemingly dead plants in springtime, so will God bring LIFE to your weary soul.

He will come, and He will bring new life.  That's a promise you can cling to, a promise that you can anchor your faith to.  It is a promise God will keep.

Last spring I was led to this verse as I prepared to teach at a women's tea at a local church.  I loved the verse and what it promised, but little did I know that God would prove Himself true to this promise in the months to come.  I had no idea how desperately I would need this promise.  I still marvel at how God works to provide for His children, how He planted that verse in my head well in advance of the time I would need it as an anchor in my heart.

My family has experienced some circumstances this summer that truly tested our faith.  They pushed us to the point of mental, emotional and spiritual weariness where we felt as though our feet were made of lead and we were unable to drag them forward for even one more step.  But in those days and weeks, God reminded me of Hosea 6:3, (in fact, it rarely left my mind!)  and my husband and I - on behalf of our family - continued to press on in our faith.

Still, we are continuing to press on.  But let me tell you, we have begun to see the Son rising in our home! The Spirit has begun to reign in our family and we see evidence of new life in every corner!

God is faithful, my friend.  Be encouraged today as you press on to acknowledge Him, that He is a God who is true to His Word.  Keep pressing on and know that "as surely as the sun rises in the east, He WILL appear."

The Playdough Principle: Five (Short) Lessons On How To Be Playdough

Yesterday I introduced you to "The Playdough Principle," the idea that when we face adversity, we should be moldable (like playdough) and allow God to use those difficult circumstances to shape us into His own image.

But how do we allow ourselves to be clay in the hands of our Father?  How do we make ourselves soft and pliable in His hands?   

To understand that, I want to turn to a story in the Old Testament about a trio of men named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  We find their story in Daniel 3.  Now, these men were Jews living in exile in Babylon.  God has blessed them and their fellow Israelite, Daniel, so that they have been appointed to high positions under King Nebuchadnezzar.  The King is so highly impressed with himself that he has erected a ninety foot tall statue of himself, and he has ordered that everyone in the kingdom must bow down and worship it.  But these God-fearing men refused to bow down to anyone other than God, even under threat of execution.  When questioned by the king, this was their reply (found in verses 16-18): “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you.  If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us.  He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty.  But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”

So, lesson number one from these men: We must be steadfast in our dedication to the Lord.  Hebrews 12:2 says “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith…”  When hard times come your way, you may be tempted to do a couple of things:  You may want to blame God, or you may start thinking that perhaps He is not as all-powerful as you once believed.  Those two are very deep issues that take a lot of digging to deal with.  But trust me in this, we are shown over and over in Scripture that God has power above all and over all, and He is a compassionate God whose desire is not to harm you, but to help you grow into the likeness of His Son.   James 1:13-15 reminds us that God does NOT tempt us, so don’t allow yourself to be swayed into that sort of thinking, either.  Instead, keep your eyes, your heart and your mind focused on Jesus.  Immerse yourself in God’s Word and plant it in your heart so that when the enemy tries to pull you away from Christ, you will remain steadfast in your faith.  Do not let the enemy bully you or frighten you into turning away from God.

Lesson number two: We must be intentional in our obedience to God.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not nonchalant in any way as they refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, nor did they hope to just “fly under the radar.”  They were prominent men in Babylon, so they lived their lives in the public eye and were intentional in their obedience to God’s command not to worship any god but Himself.  We, too, must be purposeful in searching out and obeying God’s directions for us.  When you’re in the middle of adversity, ask yourself, “What does God want me to learn from this?  How does He want me to react?”  And then do your very best to be obedient to what He reveals to you.  Sometimes – many times – that means choosing to act in direct opposition to our instinct or to what our flesh cries out for.  Perhaps you have been hurt deeply by a friend or a loved one, maybe even your spouse.  Everything in you tells you to lash out at them and hurt them in retaliation, but the Spirit is guiding you to forgive.  Maybe you’re struggling in your relationship with the Lord, doubting His presence in your life and you really just want to walk away.  Instead, you continue to pick up your Bible and read His Word simply out of obedience.  Maybe there’s a temptation in your life that you really, really want to cave in to, and you have to make a choice – to yield to the Spirit or give in to the flesh.  We must be intentional in our obedience to God.

Lesson number three: TRUST.  Boy, this can be a hard one.  We have been taught not to trust anyone other than ourselves, because eventually, in one way or another, everyone else will let us down.  But we serve a God who will NEVER let us down.  Deuteronomy 31:8 says, “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you.  He will be with you; He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”

Romans 8:31-39 says, “…If God is for us, who can ever be against us?  Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?  Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself.  Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.  Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?  (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”)  No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.  And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We can TRUST God, the same way that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego trusted God.  They boldly stated their faith in Him when they told Nebuchadnezzar that even if he should throw them in the fiery furnace, God would rescue them.  And they were steadfast enough in that faith that they knew He was still the One, True God even if He chose NOT to rescue them.  (Dan 3:17-18) 

Lesson number four: Recognize that God is with us in the midst of our trials.  When our three friends in Babylon refused to bow down to the king’s statue, Ole Nebby flew into a rage.  He ordered the heat of the furnace to be intensified seven times hotter than normal.  It was so hot that the soldiers who threw Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the furnace were killed themselves, just standing next to the entrance.  But when King Nebby looked into the furnace, he was quite surprised to see the three men standing unharmed and accompanied by a fourth!  It is believed by many scholars that this fourth man was Jesus, Himself!  God is with us, even amidst our troubles! I want you to notice that God didn’t come to rescue Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego BEFORE they were thrown into the fire.  He didn’t come to keep them out of the fire, but to go through the fire with them.  God doesn’t promise to keep us out of the fire, but He has given us His Spirit, who lives in us and is our constant companion, to walk with us through the fire.  In John 14:16-17, Jesus tells His followers this: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate who will never leave you.  He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.”  

Take a minute and picture God's hand wrapped tightly around you.  Not just holding your hand, but all of you.  You are safe there.  No matter what happens, God will never let go of you, neither on purpose nor by accident.  You can never "slip" from His grasp, and He will never intentionally let you fall.  Nor can any circumstance pull you from His grip.  You are completely safe.

Now, picture yourself holding on to a rope that is fraying and about to break, torn to shreds by the trials in your life.  In fact, it is holding on only by a thread, and you are desperately trying to cling to the rope, hoping against hope that it will hold up under your weight.  Now, look down and see that you are resting securely in the palm of God's hand.  Sometimes we are so desperately afraid of falling and we are trying so hard to hold ourselves up that we don't realize we just need to let go and trust God to hold on to us.  Sure, the trials will come and they will be bitter.  But God's hand will always be there.  And He's a BIG God; He cannot be tumbled by the trials of this world.  Of that you can be sure.

I want you to see one other thing.  Notice that the hand that holds you bears the scar of a deep wound.  The hand that holds you belongs to a God who loves you so completely that He would stop at nothing, even death on a cross, to rescue you.  The hand that holds you is that of a God who has suffered just as we have -- physically, emotionally, relationally -- and understands what it means to stare death in the face.  The hand that holds you is steady and strong, yet compassionate and caring.  In it you can place your whole trust and find the solace that your soul longs for.  Friend, when you belong to Jesus, you are safe.  Always.  Even when the world around you is a fiery furnace of trials.

Lesson number five: Rest assured that God will use our trials for His glory.  When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stepped out of the furnace unharmed, the king was absolutely amazed to see that not even a hair on their head was singed.  As a result, he began to praise God throughout his kingdom, and he even promoted the three men to higher positions of authority.  When you allow God to bring you through a fiery situation and you hold steadfastly to your faith in Him, other people WILL notice.  Not only will you be changed, but your witness may bring salvation into the life of others.  How awesome is that! 

So…we want to be Playdough, not elastic.  We want our trials to stretch us, but not just leave us unchanged.  We want to be stretched and molded into the image of God’s Son.  In order to be Playdough, we need to work to attain these characteristics: We must be steadfast in our faith; we must be intentional in our obedience to God’s instructions for us; we must allow ourselves to trust God, knowing that He will never fail us; we must recognize that God is with us even in the middle of our hard times; and we can rest on the fact that God will use our trials for His glory.  Be Playdough, my friends, and let God use the adversity in your life to make you into the perfect image of His Son.

The Playdough Principle: Finding Purpose In Adversity

When you became a follower of Christ, experiencing trials was probably not at the top of your list of expectations.  We often talk of the peace and the hope and the strength that comes from our relationship with Him, but we forget to acknowledge some hardships that we will endure because of – or sometimes “in spite of” -- our faith.  Jesus warned his disciples in John 16:33 that “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows,” but he reassured them by adding,  “but take heart, because I have overcome the world.”  So we know without a doubt that we WILL face some hard times, even as Christians.  What separates us from the world is not a lack of hardship, but how we face and respond to that trouble.

The way I see it, we’ve got a couple of choices when it comes to responding to adversity.  One, we can allow it to break us.  We can blame God for our troubles and turn our backs on him while we sit and lick our wounds.  Or, two, we can allow God to use those experiences to mold us and shape us into the people he wants us to be.  

James 1:2-4 says, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”  Our trials, no matter how big or small, provide an opportunity for our faith to grow. Indeed, without those opportunities, what would produce strength and endurance in our faith?

I remember a few summers ago I attempted for the first time ever to grow tomatoes.  I do NOT have a green thumb, so to speak, but I was doing my best to grow a little vegetable garden in my back yard.  That summer was especially hot and dry.  My tomato plants were doing quite splendidly as far as plants go, but they weren’t producing any tomatoes.  In fact, they weren’t even budding out.  My mom advised me to go out with a stick and literally beat the plants, saying that they needed that distress in order to grow the way they’re supposed to.  So I did – I felt a little silly – and eventually my plants started to grow fruit.   

Sometimes we, too, need to experience times of distress in order for our lives as Christ-followers to begin to produce fruit.

Sometimes when we talk about faith and about how to deal with difficult times, we use the word "resilient" to describe the characteristic that we're working toward.  To be resilient means that when adversity strikes, we can be stretched and twisted and pressed in, and yet we are not broken.  It means that we can “bounce back” from trials and not be destroyed.  2 Corinthians 4:8-9 describes this perfectly: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed.  We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.  We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God.  We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”  Yes, resilience seems to be the perfect description of a quality that we must have in the midst of adversity.

However, as I think about that word, I feel like maybe it falls a little short.  You see, the idea of being resilient conjures in my mind the picture of a piece of elastic.  You can stretch it and stretch it, and for the most part it will return back to its original state.  You can stretch it over and over, and still it pops right back to where it used to be.  And I wonder, is that the kind of person I need to be?  When I am stretched by the trials of life, do I want to simply return to the place I started before I encountered those trials?  My answer to that – as I hope is yours – is “no.”  If my trials and struggles leave me exactly where I was when I started, then they have served no purpose.  And if my trials serve no purpose, then I want nothing of them.   

If the passage from James that we read earlier is true, and I am to consider my trials an opportunity to find joy, then those trials MUST serve a purpose.

We want to keep this idea of elasticity and pliability.  We don’t want our trials to simply break us; we want to allow ourselves to be stretched by them.  But we don’t want to just “bounce back,” either.  So instead of thinking of ourselves as elastic, let’s think about ourselves as Playdough.  Playdough is soft, somewhat stretchable, and certainly pliable.  With just a gentle squeeze, you can easily shape it however your imagination leads you, and when you let go, it stays the way you left it.

We, too, should be somewhat stretchable and pliable, and when difficulties come our way, we should allow our Heavenly Father to use those experiences to shape us into the people He wants us to be.  We may start as a simple lump of clay in His hands, yet unformed into anything recognizable.  And then difficult times come, and He begins to press in on us, changing us.  That experience passes, and we notice we have been shaped into something new.  And then another difficulty comes our way, perhaps several at the same time, even, and God begins to use those experiences to change us into yet a different form.  Time after time throughout our life we confront trials, and when we allow God to use those experiences to mold us instead of allowing them to make our hearts hard or bitter, we ever so slowly begin to resemble Christ Himself, each experience shaping us a little more into His image.   

In this, our trials have great purpose. 

Tomorrow: Five (Short) Lessons on How To Be Playdough

Finding Your Way Out of the Desert

I grew up in a little farm town in South Central Kansas.  Even so, deep down I'm a city girl.  Maybe not "big city," but certainly not "roughing it in the wild," either.   I was even a Girl Scout for most of my elementary school years.  Still, I'd rather sleep under a ceiling fan than the stars and go swimming in the city pool rather than the river.

If I ever truly got lost in the wilderness, I'd be sunk.

Fortunately, surviving a spiritual desert doesn't involve lighting a fire with no matches or using the position of the sun to figure out which direction I'm going.

It does, however, involve a huge amount of persistence and tenacity.

For the past couple of days we've talked about different reasons we might end up in a spiritual desert.  Tonight I want to give you some practical steps you can take when you're in such a place that will help you to find your way out with your faith intact.

First, like I wrote in The Desert of Bad Choices, you have to find out if it is your own sin that has driven you into the desert.  It's like ruling out an empty gas tank in your car before you decide the engine is broken.  You have to start there, or nothing else you do will ever help you move forward.  So start by asking God if there is any unconfessed sin that stands between you and Him. If He reveals anything to you, confess it and receive His forgiveness.  I believe you will never fully experience God's healing waters until you do.

The next instruction I would offer is this: Keep acknowledging God as your Lord.  Even when you don't have that emotional pull, that desire rooted in your heart to worship Him, do it anyway.  Call upon your head knowledge and your previous experience that tells you God is who He says He is, even if your heart doesn't agree for the time being.

Hosea 6:3 says this:

"Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge Him.  As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

"Let us press on to acknowledge Him..."  This is where that tenacity comes in.  Sometimes acknowledging God in our most desolate times take intentionality and hard work.  But when we continue to faithfully acknowledge God as the Lord of our hearts and our minds and our souls and even our bodies - Lord of all that we are and all that we do - even when we aren't experiencing emotional closeness with Him, we will eventually see Him.  And when we find Him, we will find refreshment and rejuvenation just as the earth feels when the spring rains shower down on it.

Press on to acknowledge the Lord.

Keep seeking the Lord.  Don't give up and decide that He is not to be found.

David, the one called a man after God's own heart, experienced desert times.  He wrote in Psalm 61:1

"You, God are my God, earnestly I seek You.  I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water."

David's soul was thirsty for God's presence, and so he was earnestly seeking Him.

Be persistent as you keep seeking the Lord.

One way you can do this is by continuing in your spiritual disciplines.  Keep your habit of reading the Bible, praying, meditating, fasting, meeting together with believers.  If you haven't established these habits, now is a great time to start!  Let the habit bridge the gap between those times when your heart feels fully invested.  It may feel as if things become a little more ritual than heartfelt - even a bit like you're just going through the motions.  But the fact that you are continuing in the practice of nourishing yourself spiritually will keep you from withering and wasting away in the heat of your spiritual desert.

Continue to give God praise, even when you feel distant from Him.  Go back to Psalm 61.  Immediately after David declared that His soul was parched with thirst for God, He wrote this:

"I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory.  Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.  I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands.  I will be fully satisfied as with the riches of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You."

Even when David felt distant from the God he was seeking, he continued to sing praises.  He recalled the things God had revealed to him.  He reminded himself of the goodness of God.

And last, focus your heart and your mind on Jesus rather than your circumstances.  Ask Him over and over to be the light that leads you out of the wilderness.  Join with David in this prayer, found in Psalm 43:3-4 -

"Send out Your light and Your truth; let them guide me.  Let them lead me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You live.  There I will go to the altar of God, to God - the source of all my joy.  I will praise You with my harp O God, my God!"

Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

And in John 14:6 He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."

And don't forget Jesus' promise in John 4:14 - "Those who drink the water I give them will never be thirsty again.  It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."

Jesus is the Truth that we can cling to when we feel lost in a spiritual desert.  He is the way to the Father, He is the pillar that will lead us out of darkness and into the light of our Father's presence.  He is the One that will give us that eternal, life-giving spring of water welling up and overflowing in us.

Deserts are pretty awful places to be, on foot and in spirit.  When we're in a spiritual desert, we long for those mountain-top experiences.  We long to feel the closeness of God, to overflow with the joy of His presence.

But I believe it is in the desert where our character is truly shaped into that which more closely resembles His.  It is there that we learn to trust Him regardless of what our emotions tell us.  It is there that we learn to depend on Him for every ounce of nourishment.  It is in the desert that we learn to work hard in our pursuit of Him, and it is only by experiencing the desert that we fully understand and appreciate the cooling refreshment that His Spirit brings.

Deserts are inevitable, but not fatal.  When you find yourself in the middle of a spiritual desert, don't give up.  Keep seeking God, and trust that He will carry you through to the other side where you can sink in to the coolness of His Spirit and enjoy the refreshment that only He can bring.

In the Desert Part 2: The Desert of Adversity

Hello again, my friend.  I'm so glad you came back to walk with me another day.  This week we're talking about Deserts on My Heart.  If you're joining us for the first time, you might want to head over to this post: Deserts.  Or if you missed yesterday's post, you can find it here: The Desert of Bad Choices.
 
Today we're going to take the heat off of ourselves for a bit and look at how sometimes we end up in a spiritual desert not because of our own choices, but because of the actions of someone or something else.

People - often people we love and trust - hurt us, betray us, anger us, disappoint us.  And in the midst of these hurtful circumstances, we can sometimes find ourselves feeling cut off from God, left to deal with life on our own.

I'd like you to meet one of my favorite minor characters in the Old Testament.  I adore her story because she gave God a name that has become very dear to me: The God Who Sees Me.  Her name is Hagar.  She was the maidservant of Sarai and she was pushed into the desert by her mistress not once in her lifetime, but twice.

You see, Sarai was promised that she and her husband Abram would have a son that would one day become a great nation.  The problem was that Sarai was barren.  No babies in her foreseeable future.  And rather than wait on God to fulfill His promise in His own way, Sarai took matters into her own hands.  She offered her maidservant, Hagar, to Abram and told him to sire a child with her.

After the child was conceived, Hagar began to resent her mistress.

Can you blame her?  She didn't choose to be Abram's wife; Sarai didn't bother to ask Hagar before she gave her to Abram.  And yet she was forced to conceive and carry this child.

And then there was Sarai... She had her own basket full of resentment!  I think as she watched the belly of her maidservant swell with the child that should have been her own, Sarai began to despise the young woman.  Every milestone in Hagar's pregnancy must have been a harsh reminder of her own barrenness.  Resentment and hatred must have grown in Sarai as she watched - in her estimation - the promise God had made to her come to fruition in the womb of another woman.

And so the Scripture says that Sarai mistreated Hagar until the servant girl fled to the desert.  An angel of the Lord found her there and spoke to her, and it was then that Hagar gave God the name El Roi, the God Who Sees Me, because He saw her in the wilderness and spoke to her there.  He made a promise to her that her son would be the father of a great nation himself, and He sent her back to Abram and Sarai.

Now fast forward thirteen or fourteen years.  Hagar had returned to her mistress and had given birth to Ishmael who was now a young teenager.  God had visited Abram and made a covenant with him, changing his name to Abraham and Sarai's to Sarah.  He had fulfilled His promise to bring them a son, and Sarah bore Isaac.  Isaac was old enough to be weaned so his father held a great feast of celebration.  Ishmael, being the shining example of a fourteen year old boy, began to mock his little brother, and Sarah witnessed it.

And boy, do you wanna talk about mad!  You do NOT mess with Mama's little man!  Finally, after watching her husband interact with that other boy for more than a decade, she had a son of her own and she certainly would not tolerate such behavior.  So she marched herself over to Abraham and demanded that the boy and his mother be sent away.

I picture Abraham taking a deep breath as his wife ranted, and then letting it out in a long, slow sigh as he watched her stomp away in a huff.  And then sadly, he turned to go find his firstborn son and the boy's mother and tell them they had to leave.

Early the next morning, he gave Hagar and Ishmael some food and water and sent them on their way.  They wandered in the desert of Beersheba until their supply of water was gone.  Unable to watch her son wither and die, Hagar sat him down under a bush and walked far enough away that she couldn't see him and sat down herself.  She began to weep as she realized they were both going to die.

We do that too, don't we?  When life gets too overwhelming, when we can't seem to find our way out of the desert?  When we're hurt and alone and feeling abandoned?  I know I have days like that.

But do you know what?  God didn't leave Hagar and Ishmael to die in the desert.  He heard them crying and He called out to them.  Even though they weren't crying out to Him - they were just wallowing in their sorrow - He heard them and He cared for them.  He spoke to them.  The first time God spoke to Hagar in the desert, she named Him El Roi.  I think the second time God spoke to her in the desert, she recognized the voice of her El Roi and she knew she was safe in His care, even in the wilderness.  And when He told her to get up and go back to her son, she didn't argue or tell Him why it was no use.  She simply obeyed.

And it was then that God opened her eyes so she could see the water well He had provided, full of life-giving water to sustain herself and her son.

Sometimes we are sentenced to spend time in the desert not because of our own sins or our own wanderings, but because someone or something else pushes us there.  Perhaps a spouse betrays us, a child rebels, a friend gossips.  Maybe someone we love lost their life far too soon, or we lost a job and don't know how we'll put food on the table.  Maybe someone we looked up to as a spiritual leader betrayed us.

Or if you're like me, maybe the pressures of life just get so burdensome that you can't find a way out from under them.

So many painful circumstances that we endure in our lifetime can push us to a place where we feel alone, separated from God.

Hopeless.

Be we, like Hagar, are never alone in the desert, even if we can't hear or feel the presence of God.  We are never without hope.  Isaiah 41:17 says,

"The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst.  But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.  I will open up rivers for them on the high plateaus.  I will give them fountains of water in the valleys.  I will fill the desert with pools of water.  Rivers fed by springs will flow across the parched ground."

Hagar survived her time in the desert because God provided for her, and He will do the same for us.  When we listen for His voice and obey when He speaks, God is faithful to provide.  He will flood our thirsty souls with His presence and satisfy our longing for Him.

Jesus said in John 4:14, "Those who drink the water I give them will never be thirsty again.  It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life."  When we find ourselves in a spiritual desert, we can trust that Jesus will provide His life-giving water for our souls.  We can know that He won't allow us to wither and die in the heat of the sun.

There is a God Who Sees Us, an El Roi, who will rescue us in the desert.  Trust Him.  Know you are safe with Him.  Wait for Him.

Tomorrow, we get practical and talk about some things we can do to find our way out of a spiritual desert.  Hope you'll come back and talk with me some more!

In the Desert Part 1: The Desert of Bad Choices

Yesterday we talked about spiritual deserts, about how sometimes our faith begins to look a little like the Sahara.  (If you missed it, start here: Deserts.)

A spiritual desert is a pretty difficult place to be, and one that we'd rather pass through as quickly as possible.  It's certainly not a place we'd like to linger.

Let me give you fair warning: the way out of the desert is not often an easy road to tread. 

But it is a road that you will be glad you traveled once you're back in the mountains.

So let's put on our walking shoes and get moving.

When we find ourselves lost in a spiritual desert, I believe there's one place that we have to start or we will never find our way out.  We have to start with ourselves.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a spiritual desert because of our own bad choices.  Our own sin.  While it is true that nothing in all of creation can come between us and God, I do believe that our sin can.  Sin stands as a barrier between our hearts and God, preventing fellowship and communion with Him.  Until we remove that barrier, nothing we do or say will ever move us out of the desert.  Sin will instead sentence us to wander in the desert, unable to experience the live-giving presence of God and the blessings He has planned for us.

We see this most clearly demonstrated in the book of Numbers.  After rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and proving His power by defeating the Egyptian army, God asked that one man from each tribe of Israel spy out the land He promised to give them.  He promised that He would enable and equip His people to conquer Canaan and it's ungodly inhabitants, and yet ten of the spies came back and convinced the people that what God had promised them they could do, could not in fact be done.

The people even went so far as to cry out that they wished they could return to Egypt.  After God rescued them there!

And so, because of their sin, God made His chosen people wander in the desert for forty years.  Numbers 14:34 record these words spoken by God to the people of Israel: "For forty years...you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you."  In Numbers 32 we read that the entire generation of people had to die before any of God's people were allowed out of the desert.

The good news is that we aren't sentenced to die in the wilderness like the Israelites.  Acts 3:19 tells us that when we repent of our sins, when we confess them before God, they will be wiped away.  Literally, they will be erased.  Gone.  No trace of them left.

And once we have repented of our sins and they have been wiped away, the Scripture says the Lord will bring us a time of refreshment.  The Greek word for refreshment (anapsyxis) carries with it the idea of relief of cooling.

Like sitting down in your air-conditioned living room with a glass of iced tea or lemonade after spending a hot July afternoon in your garden.

Ahhh...  Can you feel it?  How good it feels to get out of the sun and to feel that cool air on your face?

Not only does God erase the sin that stands between us and Him, but He also provides relief from the heat of the desert sun.  He soothes our parched souls with the water of His presence.

Pretty amazing, don't you think?

So the first thing we need to do when we find ourselves in this figurative desert is to ask God if there is any unconfessed sin in our life that is standing between us and Him, and then listen to what He says in response.  He might show us in the form of a picture or a memory, or He might speak words that seem nearly audible.  Maybe He'll speak directly to our heart.  However He tells us, once He reveals any sin in our life, we must confess it to Him.  We need to confess our desire to have that sin removed from us and ask Him to receive it.

Don't wander in the desert because you don't want to own up to your own bad choices. Don't let guilt or pride or stubbornness convince you to hold on to your sins.  Confess them before the Lord!  I believe you will never fully experience God's healing waters until you do this.

See, I warned you that this might not be an easy road to walk.  But hang with me, my friend, because it will be worth every step.  In the end, when you can sink into the coolness of God's presence and rest your weary soul, you will be ever so glad you took this journey.

Tomorrow: The Desert of Adversity

Deserts

When I think of a desert, I usually picture something like this:

Or maybe something like this:

No matter which desert you're thinking of, one thing is consistent: deserts are dry.  Whether they're hot or cold (yes, I learned that there are even cold deserts!), sandy or rocky, in Africa or North America, every desert on this earth is dry.

But have you ever thought that sometimes a desert looks more like this?

In this kind of desert it is a person's soul that is dry rather than the climate.  It is a place where we find ourselves beaten by the winds of discouragement and scorched by the cruelty of our world.  It is a place where we thirst for renewal and refreshment in God's presence, but sometimes we just can't seem to find Him.

A spiritual desert is a difficult place to be, and if you've ever found yourself in one you know that life can start to feel a little hopeless.

As if you will die of thirst before it is ever quenched.

King David knew what it was like to be in a desert.  He wrote these words in Psalm 61:1 -- 

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.

Can you relate?  Do you know what it feels like for your spirit to be parched with thirst for His presence?

I know I do.  I know I've had times when God has seemed so very distant, where it feels like I can't take one more step without Him and yet no matter how hard I try, my heart can't find Him.

Hopeless.

And yet I am able to write this today because God has proven again and again that we are never, ever without hope.  No matter how desolate life feels, our God still reigns.  Even when we feel so very distant from our Heavenly Father, we can be assured that we will never be completely separated from Him.  Romans 8:35-39 assures us that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus.  And when our spirits long for the cooling water of His presence, we can draw on His promise in Isaiah 43:20 ~ I will make rivers in the dry wasteland where my people can be refreshed.

A spiritual desert does not have to be a place where our faith shrivels and dies.

Instead, it can be a place where our faith is made stronger, where our character is shaped more fully into that of our Father.  A place we learn to work hard in our pursuit of God. 

Over the next few days I'm going to share a couple of posts with you that talk about spiritual deserts.  We're going to talk about why we end up there, and how we can find our way out safely on the other side.  I hope you will journey with me.

See you tomorrow.

Marathon Parenting

Once upon a time I was working my way toward becoming a long distance runner.  After the birth of my fourth child I decided it was time to get in shape, and my best friend convinced me to start running with her. Eventually she convinced me to run a 5K race with her.  I thought she was crazy, but I agreed to do it and so we started training.

The first few weeks of training were miserable.  We would start to jog and immediately my lungs would start screaming at me.  With gasping breaths I begged Kathy to let me stop.  But she wouldn't do it.  She pushed me to make it to the end of the block, and then to the next mailbox.  Every day the goals got a little farther apart and she pushed me to run a little bit harder.  After what felt like months (but was probably only weeks) she was cheering me on as I finished my first mile.  Soon we were running side by side on the treadmills at the gym and I was the one encouraging her to go one more minute, to finish one more quarter mile.  By the time we ran the 5K, she urged me to run on without her, and I completed the 3.1 miles several minutes ahead of her.  One thing is for sure: I could never have accomplished any of it without her support.

Training for that race was hard work.  It was exhausting and painful, and sometimes I just wanted to give up.

I've been thinking this week how much my job as a parent is like training for that race.

It's exhausting and it's certainly not easy.  Sometimes it's discouraging and downright heartbreaking.  There are times when I pray with desperate, gasping breaths, begging God for a break.  Times when I am weary and feel unable to take one more step, let alone go another mile.

And God reminds me: this race we're running, it's not just a 5K.  The finish line is not waiting three miles down the road.

No, the race we're running as parents is definitely a marathon.  And lest I become even more discouraged, He reminded me of this:

...but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.

~Isaiah 40:31

The hardest work of parenting, I think, isn't teaching my children the difference between right or wrong, or even teaching them to be nice to their siblings.  The most difficult part of parenting is consistently and diligently shaping their character so that it reflects the character of God.  It is enforcing Godly boundaries even when my children don't seem to respond with anything but disdain for me when I do.  It is waiting on God and trusting Him to form the hearts of these precious young people in His own time.

I want the race to be over after just a few miles, with a quick sprint to the finish line.

God says it takes a lifetime.

I don't think I can run this race.

But God says I can, and here's how:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ~ Hebrews 12:1-3

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.     ~ Hebrews 10:23

When Kathy and I first began training for our race, she would pick out a mailbox or a street sign down the road and push me to make it at least that far. As I was running I would fix my gaze on that goal, determined to make it without giving up.  That goal - that mailbox or sign post - gave me hope.  Without it, I stared ahead at what seemed like an endless road that I knew I couldn't conquer.  

Jesus is my goal, my hope in this parenting marathon.  When I'm feeling overwhelmed by the road ahead of me, it's because I've taken my eyes off of Him and focused instead on the challenges and difficulties of being a parent.  When I am weary and want to quit, it's time to realign my heart and mind so that they are fixed on my Savior.  In Him I will find the energy and strength to press forward.  He is my hope that I will make it to the finish line, and He will be faithful to see me through.

I'm no marathon runner.  In fact, I'm not even a 5K runner any more.  But I am the parent of four very special people who need me to press on in this race.  Even if they don't understand or appreciate how I'm running it, they need me to keep on.

And so I will continue putting one foot in front of the other, eyes and heart fixed on Jesus, determined to go the distance.

Love...With All Your Heart

 If you're new to the blog, take a minute to hop over and read the introduction to this post: Crock-Pot Marriage

It seems a little ironic to me that I would start my "Love..." series with this topic, what with my declaration of how much I despise manufactured mushy, lovey feelings.  (No clue what I'm talking about?  Take a quick detour and read what I have against Valentine's Day.)

But since the heart is really the first place we go to talk about love, it seems only fitting.  And the whole basis for this series, Mark 12:30, starts with the heart so I figure it's best to do the same.

Love...with all your heart.

At first glance, it seems that the idea of loving someone with all your heart would be a simple thing.   Loving is something we do naturally, from the time we are small children. It seems that the need to love and be loved was woven into the core of who we are as humans.

And why wouldn't it be?  After all, we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and God is, Himself, love. (1 John 4:7-8)

And yet, love is this mystical feeling that we really don't seem to have much control over and can't even really describe.  All we know is that sometimes it makes us want to sing, and other times it makes us want to cry.  It makes us long to be around the person we love and to pull them close and hold them tight.  It compels us to do things for someone else that we never imagined ourselves doing.  

Oh, this wonderful thing we call love!

And when we first began to feel this amazing feeling for the person who is now our spouse, it turned our world upside down. We couldn't imagine anything ever changing the way we felt.  Nothing could ever taint this perfect, beautiful, glorious LOVE we were feeling.

(If you're a newlywed, you may even feel that way about your spouse this very moment.  Take a minute or two and just bask in the warmth of that deliciously wonderful feeling!)

While the newlyweds are basking, the rest of us are going to take a stroll ahead to the reality of life a few years after the wedding.   Let's face it, it doesn't matter how wonderful your marriage is, there are just some days that are a little less 

and a little more

Emotions - feelings - are fickle things, affected by so many variables.  The weather, lack of sleep, hormones, the children...   Some days we're feeling the love and some days... well, let's just say we're not feeling it.  If someone were to ask us, "do you love your spouse?" of course we would answer with a resounding, "yes!"  But if we were asked, "how do you feel about him right now?" I daresay that sometimes it would be difficult to answer quite so enthusiastically.

Would you be shocked if I told you that loving your spouse with all your heart actually has very little to do with how you feel?

God has loved us - His most precious creation - with all of His heart.  He loves us so much that first He gave us His Son: a living, breathing, walking, talking personification of Himself.  And then He called Jesus back to His presence so that He could send something better: His Holy Spirit. (See John 16:7) The Comforter, the Helper.  A part of Himself that could live in each one of His children, that would allow us to constantly live in His presence.  And Galatians 5:22-23 tells us that when the Holy Spirit lives in us, we begin to see things like love and joy and peace and patience begin to show up in our lives.  Each one of these Fruits of the Spirit are somehow connected with an emotion, with our heart.

God has loved us with His heart by giving of Himself in order to take care of our hearts.

And now it is our turn to love our spouses with our hearts by taking care of theirs.

This means we've got to start by finding out what their hearts need.  Perhaps your spouse follows the pattern described by Paul in Ephesians 5:33, where he instructs husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands.  Why would he give such instructions?  Because most women need to feel loved and most men need to feel respected!  Sure, it's not true for absolutely everyone across the board, but you'll never know unless you seek out your spouse's heart and discover for yourself what he or she needs.  In addition, you've got to discover what it means to love your wife or respect your husband from their perspective.

Respect is incredibly important to my husband.  I can tell him that I love him all day long, but if I don't show him respect, especially in our home and around our children, he doesn't feel loved.  I've known this for a good long time.  But I realized a while back that I didn't completely understand what it means to show him respect.  I had my own definition, but I had never bothered to ask Scott what he perceived as respect, or especially the lack thereof.  Unless I understand what he perceives as respect, I will never be able to give it to him.  And so I asked him.

It's so very much easier to communicate with someone if you know what language they speak.

Now I am trying to learn to speak "Respect" in Scott's language.  There are times when it is honestly really hard and it requires some self-sacrifice.  There are even some times when I think it's beyond what I am capable of doing.  (Mostly that means keeping my mouth shut instead of speaking my mind, which truly happens only by the self-control grown in me by the Holy Spirit.)  But it's what my husband's heart needs, and so I am trying to choose to give it. 

What do you need to do to love your spouse with all your heart?  Ask him or her and find out!  Sit facing one another on the couch or on the bed.  Look each other in the eyes and ask, "What can I do to make you feel more loved by me?" And then keep asking questions until you completely understand.  You might be as surprised by the answers you get as your spouse is by the question itself!

Once you know what it will take - or even as you're still figuring it out - work, and work hard at doing whatever it is that your spouse's heart needs you to do.  That means being intentional with words and actions.  It means dying to self  at times in order to give your husband the respect that he needs, or your wife the love and adoration that she needs.  Give sacrificially of yourself in order to care for the heart of your beloved.

What a relief it is to me to know that loving my husband with all my heart really has nothing to do with sappy, mushy sentiment (although that may be exactly what your spouse needs from you!), but everything to do with giving his heart what it needs.  Ironically, I often realize that when I am intentionally loving Scott, giving his heart what it needs, those mushy feelings start to show up on their own.

I guess sometimes a girl just has to give in...