God is...

It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6MSG

"How do you convince an atheist that Jesus exists?" Two teens in my Sunday youth Bible class recently asked this question because they had a family friend who refused to believe there was a God.

Their question led to a discussion of the ways we know Christ is real:

• Personal experience - I know Christ exists because I had a real, up-close and personal experience with Him when I was a child, following an abusive experience.I knew Him as a big brother while growing up and I've known Him as a Father since I became an adult. I can't imagine living without Christ in my life because of all the times I 've sensed, known, felt His love and presence with me.
• The experiences of others - When I hear the testimonies of others, my faith is strengthened. In some cases, their stories help me to know I'm not alone - not the only one wh has ever felt a certain way. Other times, I am awed by the things God has done for them.There are simply to many valid experiences by others to say that God isn't real.
• Nature- the development of a baby in the womb and feeling it move for the first time. The Grand Canyon, The intricacies of a snowflake and the fact that there are no two alike. All I have to do is look around and I can see Him everywhere.
• Miracles - How a person with cancer becomes cancer-free and the doctors can't explain it. How a migratory bird finds its way thousands of miles to a seasonal nesting area for the first time, even though it's never been there. How situations line up just right for the perfect outcome, even though it looked impossible in the beginning. Even "coincidences" or God's little miracles incognito are evidences of his reality around us. I've seen too many "God-incidences" not to believe.
• Because the Bible says it's true.The Bible is a life-changing book. When a person sets out to disprove God by discrediting the Bible and ends up believing instead - wow! Now that's a powerful testimony of the truth of God's word and his existence.

While they cannot change their friend's mind, they can pray for him and live their lives so that he will see the reality of Christ in them - then trust God to do the rest.

Lord, help us to live every day so others will see your reality in us and believe! Amen.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the
one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Matthew 7:7-8 NIV

If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-seeing, then why
should we need to ask Him for the things we need?

You know what? God does know what we need before we ask or
even realize we need it. He knows what is best for us, even when we don’t. But
He waits for us to ask Him for our needs before answering for many reasons.

1. Asking fosters trust.

When an infant cries and its parents respond in a timely and
consistent fashion, a bond of trust develops. In the same way, we learn to trust God when we
cry to Him and He meets our needs. If I don't ask, I never learn to trust Him.

2. Asking fosters our personal growth.

I chuckle when my daughter tells her kids to "use their
words" when they want something. Most of the time she understands their
gestures or childish grunts, but by making them articulate what they need, she helps
them to grow in their communication skills.

Often we don't know what we really want or need from God. We
react emotionally to circumstances, people or pain rather than responding to
God’s presence in our lives. “Using our words” helps us work through the strong
emotions to an understanding of what we really need from our heavenly Father. We
grow up in Him.

3. Asking keeps the lines of communication open with God.

Little children go through a “Why?” phase, constantly asking
questions. Then they hit puberty and suddenly their parents don’t know anything
at all. Thankfully, they outgrown that phase too and as adults they come to appreciate
their parents’ wisdom. They begin asking
the more honest questions on their hearts which fosters a deeper relationship
based on mutual respect, trust and love. And so it is between us and our
heavenly Father.

Lord, help me to trust you enough to ask the raw, innermost,
honest questions of my heart. Amen.

Joy in the hard places

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you
face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith
produces perseverance.” James 1:2-3 NIV

There comes a point in each trial or crisis - a rock-bottom
place - when we are forced to make a
decision. We decide either to let the trial defeat us or to let it better
us.

If we succumb to the pain of the crisis, bitterness begins
to grow in our hearts, eventually darkening our spirits. But a decision to
fight back against the trial brings hope and even a glimmer of joy.

Salvation is a good example of this. Did you know that 99%
of Christians accepted Christ during a moment of crisis or great trial? Think
back to when you first made the decision to accept Christ.

When we make the decidion to let trials change us / grow us,
we begin to experience a sense of our Heavenly Father with us He is the bright
spot in the midst of the pain and grief. He begins to massage our hearts with
the oil of gladness with a sweet aroma that permeates even the most difficult
circumstances.

The events or circumstances around us might not change, but
our hearts and attitudes do - we experience the joy of relationship with Christ
in the midst of our sorrows.

Father, whenever I am going through a crisis in my life,
help me to choose to reach out to your healing, hope and joy. Help me to cling
to that hope and joy no matter how long it takes to get through the trial/
Amen!

Expections and judgements

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12 NIV

Childish giggles drifted down the stairs, bringing a smile to my daughter's lips. The two youngest children were playing well together in their bedrooms - at least for the moment.

A few minutes later a large thud rocked the house, coming from the upstairs bedroom area. My daughter tensed, waiting for the ear-splitting shriek that would surely follow. When nothing happened, she sent her oldest daughter to be sure no one was hurt.

As Eve peered into the girls' bedroom, her three year old sister Katie looked up at her from the floor, thinking she was in trouble. "I can espain...," she said. "I was trying to fly."

At one time or other, we all try to fly and most of us learn the hard way that we can't.

So why do we expect that others can fly; or read our minds to know exactly what we need when we need it; or perform some other impossible human behaviors - and then judge them harshly when they fail?.

Lord, I don't like being judged when I fail someone. Help me not to judge others either. Amen.

Spiritual renovations and touchups for the New Year

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

I love watching those TV home makeover programs – especially the ones where they do renovations on a very low budget. It forces the design team to get creative – buying used furniture and recycling the pieces into interesting and serviceable new pieces. They also take inexpensive materials and build custom pieces like headboards or artwork for the walls.

At the hands of skilled carpenters, old cabinets become armoires. With some sanding, recovered cushions and a few coats of paint, mismatched wooden chairs and tables look like they belong together. And with the addition of crystal beads, an old chandelier gets new life.

The key word here is “skilled.” These TV craftsmen know what they’re doing. They can see the potential in a piece of old furniture and they can envision what it will look like when it’s finished, in it’s newly redesigned space.

I look forward to the end of each show when they do the reveal to the home owner. Even if I wouldn’t want that style of make over in my house, I am always impressed at the way the room comes together.

In the same way, Jesus, the master craftsman, takes a broken life and redesigns it – cutting, sanding, reupholstering, painting it, until that old life is almost unrecognizable. It becomes brand new, with new purpose. The old life is no more. Those who see it are amazed at the transformation and beauty of the new life.

Even those of us who have been Christians for many years can stand a little (or a lot) of touchup work to keep our spiritual lives new and bright. Our polish get’s tarnished, the paint peels and our old nature starts showing through again. We’re a work in progress until the day we cross heaven’s threshold.

So, what areas of your life need a little heavenly renovation in this New Year?

Lord, the new year is a wonderful time to reexamine my heart to see what condition it is in. Help me to see those areas where I need some heavenly touchups from the Master Craftsman and help me to submit to your renovations so my life might be shiny and new again in your hands. Amen.

Trusting God through the losses of life

“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”
In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
~  Job 1:21b-22  ~

Loss and the subsequent grieving process seem to always be a part of our lives. We lose loved ones, jobs, our health, our faculties, relationships, material possessions, status and especially our car keys LOL!

Learning to grieve and work through those losses are the most important tasks of our lives, often determining the extent of our spiritual growth and ministry on this earth. Jesus pointed that out when he shared the parable about the kernel of wheat falling into the ground and dying in order to yield a large harvest. (John 12:24)

One of my favorite Bible stories centers around Ruth and Naomi. (The Book of Ruth, chapters 1-4)  Both women suffered heavy losses. Naomi was uprooted from friends and family in Bethlehem to move to a new land where she experienced the pain of being an outsider. Then her husband died, leaving her and her sons to fend for themselves. They were stuck in a strange land because returning to Israel meant a further loss of livelihood – the famine was heavy there, leaving no grazing land for their flocks.

As long as she had her two sons, Naomi felt compelled to be strong – to bear her losses and carry on in this foreign place. She even managed to rejoice and grew to love her new daughters-in-law when her sons married local girls. But when both of her sons died, leaving her virtually alone and unprotected in a foreign place, Naomi’s resolve cracked and a deep depression which had been building up for a long time overcame her soul. She lost her faith in God, allowing the pent up anger and bitterness inside to well up to the point where she wanted to change her name to Mara(bitter).Even returning to her home and friends didn’t help break through her depression.

Orpah coped with her loss of her husband by taking the easier route away from her pain. At the first opportunity, she returned to the safety of her home, despite the fact that she belonged to Naomi’s family through the marriage contract.We can’t really fault Orpah – she was doing what she needed to do for herself to carry on; choosing to be surrounded by family and friends and the potential of remarriage rather than making the drastic life changes involved in staying with Naomi.

Ruth, on the other hand,had discovered something powerful and real through her marriage to Mahlon – she discovered faith in a new God who cared for His people and offered her a way of escape from the hardships of her life in Moab. We don’t know what her life was like before she married Mahlon, but it must have been bad enough to cause her to to be desperate to leave Moab with Naomi, despite the fact that Naomi painted a very bleak picture of the future in Israel for her daughter-in-law.

Through her newfound faith, Ruth embraced the pain of her loss. She worked through it to the point where she accepted the future, no matter what it held, because she trusted God. Sure Ruth keenly felt the loss of her husband, but the thoughts of losing her relationship with Naomi and Naomi’s God hurt worse – a loss she couldn’t bear. So she worked through her feelings of loss with trust in her new God to take care of her even if things got as bad as Naomi said they would.

Her attitude, like that of Job in today’s quote, pleased God. He brought her into a new land where she put down roots and flourished under His care. Her tears were wiped away and her life morphed into more than she ever dreamed it could as she married Boaz, had a son and was welcomed into Bethlehem’s society. God even blessed her by incorporating her into the lineage of the Messiah. Through Ruth’s healing, the lives of all around her were touched. Naomi eventually overcame her own depression and learned to live again.

I wish I could say I always reacted to loss the way Ruth did.But I can’t. I’ve experienced deep depression many times over the course of my life resulting from painful losses. I’ve also coped by taking the easier way out rather than trusting God to walk me through the hard places. But in those times when I have managed to trust Him through the losses, I have seen phenomenal growth and healing in my life.  I have reached some of my goals that I never believed possible!

We all suffer loss, but my prayer for you today is that you might know the comfort, strength and even joy of the Lord through those losses; that you might experience the healing, growth and overcoming power of the Lord to bring you to new heights because of those losses like He did for Ruth and Job. Amen!

Today’s In Other Words is hosted by Miriam over at her blog MiPa’s Monologue. If you’d like to play along, blog about today’s quote on your blog site, then hop on over to Miriam’s blog and leave your URL with the Linky tool

Be sure to leave her a comment so she knows you visited and if you have time, visit the other blogs listed there to see everyone’s take on the quote. You’ll definitely be blessed!.

Who’s an April Fool?

Ok, I know April fool’s day has come and gone, but it was kinda fun this year….

No, I didn’t play any jokes – at least not intentionally. I was baby sitting for my 2 grandkids in Maryland and handing out money to my d-i-l  whose birthday was a joke on her mom 37 years ago. But it was a good day nevertheless.

Six year old Avery is in Kindergarten and is such a cutie. We started talking on Friday afternoon after his parents left. I made a statement and in typical six-year-old fashion he asked, “Why?”

“Why?” he asked again after I gave him the answer.  After my third reply and yet another, “Why?” I couldn’t help myself; I started laughing out loud. I don’t remember my own children going through the “Why?” stage, but I guess they did. It just tickled my funny bone to hear Avery do it with such a serious expression on his little face.

While I giggled, he looked at me as if I suddenly sprouted bunny ears. Then a grin spread across his face and he said, “Grammy, you’re making April Fools!” 

Saturday evening, Avery told me Mother Nature was making April Fools because  it was snowing with thunder and lightning outside. I guess so! We ended up with 4 inches of wet yucky white stuff on the ground which the forecasters did not predict. Every bit of it melted away by Sunday afternoon so I could travel the back roads home with no problems.

Once home, I began to get caught up on the weekend mail and noticed an interesting story on the front page of the northern NY newspaper where I used to work. The paper comes out once a week on Fridays (which just happened to be on you-know-what day this year LOL!) The lead story showed a photo of SOMETHING with a head and several humps swimming in the Oswegatchie River. An Oswegatchieness Monster perhaps??????

What a great story. The writer hooked his audience right from the beginning with an outrageous, yet believable story about a trucker passing through town who saw this thing on the river as he crossed the bridge.  The trucker photographed it with his cell phone and then called the local paper.

After the interview, the trucker climbed into the cab of his truck and told the news editor, “I’ll be driving slow and looking into the river again…. just in case.”

To which the editor laughed and replied, “I happen to see gullible readers who read this story all the way to the end before realizing it’s April Fools Day.”

Got me again!