Do you ever feel panicked? Not necessarily from something bad, but just from general life? The, ‘this deadline is coming up’, or ‘that paper is due’, or the famous ‘I can’t believe I have not gotten that done yet’ panic. Our world’s not falling apart it just feels like we are. It may be a panic caused by good things that you don’t know how to fit in your schedule, or something you’re excited for but you don’t know how other people will react. All kinds of things can cause us to panic. Then we see the amazing happen, the things we are panicked about start falling into place as if they were always meant to be there. We meet our deadline and it’s the best work we’ve ever done, our paper gets on the prof’s desk just as the bell rings and we can breathe, our schedule suddenly has room, our exciting new life experience is the making of an amazing new future, We find that thing we needed to get done goes by really fast. So on and so on. Guess what friends, that’s Jesus. When our panic turns into prayer we see it turn around into purpose. My grandfather preached once that to see miracles we first have to see problems. I know that’s not a new concept but it’s still true. Until we have the privilege of saying, “okay God, I give this to you,” we haven’t yet seen Him work. Jesus gives us what is best for us and sometimes that’s hard to see. Philippians 4:6-7 says (say it with me) worry about nothing, pray about EVERYTHING. Jesus longs to prove Himself to us, He desires to hear our prayers about everything. Nothing is too personal, too hard, too dirty, too scary for Jesus to hear us say. He knows already, so feel free in unburdening yourself to Him. Only Jesus can give us peace and only He can make perfection out of our panic.
Author: carriedinthecross
I am a young woman who grew up in British Columbia. In BC was all I ever wanted; I had my poodle (Max) and all my friends, Saturdays at the Vancouver Aquarium and Sunday afternoons at one of my favorite beaches it was paradise. But God had a different plan for my life and my dad's job landed us in Alberta and now where I remain, in small town Souris Manitoba. The transitions from paradise to prairie were difficult and I will admit that now 10 years later I still refer to home as Abbotsford BC. Through this crazy pathway trek across Canada I have had one true constant, God; and though none of it was easy, everything that has happened in my life has formed in me a true lasting friendship with the one I call Immanuel. Because no matter how far from home we are God is with us, and thanks to God I have found an almost completely over looked beauty in Manitoba. If you open your eyes you will see that God has planted wondrous things everywhere you go.
Pacing the base of the mountain
In our lives we will undoubtedly come across mountains we have to climb; there’s no way past them but up. We stand there at the base of the mountain looking at the thick, prickly trees and the 80 degree uphill grade, the top of the mountain is so high it has it’s own, personal cloud and we think to ourselves, ‘there has to be another way.’ So we begin looking for an easier route.We walk for miles as far as we can go around the base of the mountain in one direction and then in the other. We then find ourselves standing in our original spot, 10 times more tired and 10 times more discouraged as we realize we just wasted all that time and energy looking for a way around a solid rock foundation and could have been at least a third of the way to the top by now if we had just hitched up our socks and started climbing. Does this sound familiar? Well I bet it did for Moses too, he waited 40 years in the desert 100% relying on God for EVERYTHING because his people didn’t want to go through the hardship that they would face in entering the promise land. In the end God showed them that the view from the top of the mountain is well worth the climb, but it took a while to get them up there. God gets it. He’s patient with us and waits as we weigh our options but in the end we have to climb. We may get dirty and bloody and sore climbing to the top but once we sit down on the summit and look at the rushing waterfall beneath us and the crisp, cloudy air around us cools and soothes our aching bones we realize that without the climb we would never have gotten to look down upon a rainbow. God pushes us for a reason. No matter what we go through He uses it to draw us into His presence and to show us His power. He is building us into who we were meant to be and even though other people might not understand the climb and might try to persuade you to stay in the valley you taking that first, second, third, final step is putting you in God’s will; what else could we possibly wish for?
Starlight, starbright
Now that I live in the country one of my favorite things to do is sit out at night and watch the stars. Out where we are there is virtually no light pollution so we can see billions of stars and the depth of sky and the milky way is so vivid you could almost touch it. One thing I like to do is pick a star and make a wish (yes I know that’s silly but it makes me smile.) Tonight as I made my wish I noticed my star shift places and realized I had made a wish on a satellite. This made me realize how often we think we are wishing on stars and they turn out to be satilites. We put all our hopes into one big dream and it ends up being less than we expected. Say you wanted to sing professionally and you put all your effort into getting that one big hit, but when it comes and you start chasing that dream you find yourself discontented with the stage life. Now what? You’ve put all you have into this opportunity and now you don’t feel you can move on. Let me tell you something I heard a great speaker once say, “if you are feeling a push to move into something new it very well might be God preparing you for something that is coming.” Trust your calling, trust that that voice may be God wanting you to do something else. Everything has it’s season and maybe it’s your season to start God’s dream for you. Now wait, don’t go quit your job, pack your backpack and go because a new calling isn’t always what’s going on, discontentment and God moving can be different things; so pray hard and involve people you trust to pray with you because you want to be sure it’s God before you move. God is the star, solid in the sky and unwavering; our own ambitions however can easily be a satellite, here right now and gone somewhere else in a few moments. We must trust that God does have a purpose for us (because He does) and we must wait upon Him to move us when it is time. Instead of wishing upon satellites turn to God in prayer and open your heart to hear His answer.
Refreshed
Everyone has had to use it at sometime in their lives, the refresh button I mean. Whether it was the one on your phone, your computer, your video game console; the point is we have all probably had a point in our lives where it was necessary to hit that little button. There have probably been times when your device wouldn’t operate properly until you got out your paper clip, pulled out the end and gave the button a tap; Suddenly your device turns off, then back on and everything is as it should be.When God refreshes us it is much the same thing. I know that usually things aren’t completely they way they were but they FEEL better. My grandfather once preached on how a fair portion of our sufferings are caused by our minds, our situation or hurt might not be nearly so bad as our minds are making it out to be and when God refreshes us we can suddenly see the bright side. Our but God moment as my grandfather would say. That time when we were at the end of our strength, but God reached out His hand and pulled us through. God refreshes us and our souls have peace, we now feel we can take on our lives. Have you ever noticed how small the refresh button is? If you didn’t know it was there you probably wouldn’t even notice it. Sometimes that’s hope; so small that if you didn’t know that Jesus was there with you, loving you, you probably wouldn’t even notice it. The hope just needs a little focus to show us that we will be okay. If our eyes are on our frozen screen, we can’t see a solution around our problem so we panic and get frustrated; but if our eyes are on our refresh button (Jesus) we know that there is someone who can fix everything. We need to press into Him and feel Him take away all our fears and hurts and worries and refresh us. So try to remember that in our lives there will be problems, but we have a refresh button that can set everything right again, a refresh button that has overcome the world.
Shared Suffering
But if a man suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name. -1Peter 4:16
Suffering, now that is something everyone knows a little about. The verse probably means to suffer for Christ, but when you think of it can also apply to suffering in general. When you suffer as a Christian you always have someone to turn to. When you suffer as a non-believer, you suffer alone. Suffering with God means you always have someone there, wiping your forehead, wrapping your bandage, helping you up the stairs, letting you cry on His shoulder, giving you a word of confidence and so much more. I have had suffering where I feel like I am completely alone; fear builds up and I feel like my tears are mine to bear in isolation, and then I feel Jesus. It can be something as little as opening my Bible app and the verse of the day is exactly what I am experiencing, or a song that comes on the radio that describes my situation. The one common thread in everything about suffering is God reaching out His hand and pulling the one in need through. The one bright light that makes all the trouble seem like it will come to an end is the mention of God. I almost said the simple mention of God, but there is nothing simple about Him, and bringing our eyes up to His level is AMAZING. Why would the Lord of all the earth allow us to be near Him? Why would He care? Because He loves us and always will! So if you are suffering; whether it is depression, illness, pain, fear, doubt, loss or anything else, turn your eyes to Jesus because He loves you! He is waiting for you to see that He is there to HELP, He never leaves us to suffer alone, our tears He always shares with us. So praise the Lord and trust him, through all your sufferings, and know that they are temporary, but Jesus is eternal.
The prayer named Goliath
Sometimes I find things coming up in my life that I just don’t want to pray about, because praying means facing my struggle. When we pray we are meeting with God, taking His hand and staring down our problems together; that’s the hard part though, staring down the problem. It’s so nice to take my fears, my anxieties, my hurts, my angers, my sorrows and just curl up in a ball and pretend they’re not there. The old saying out of sight out of mind comes to thought and it’s so true. If we can bury our faces under our pillows and not see what’s happening we can make the hurts artificially go away. The minute we start to pray we are first acknowledging that a bad thing has happened, second we are confronting that bad thing. This can be very difficult, sometimes the bad things are things we don’t want to think about let alone face; but when we look that problem in the eye and say, “I’m not afraid of you!” It loses its power over us. When David took on Goliath he walked out with God hand in hand and looked that giant in the face, he didn’t hide and hope that he would go away because he knew that would not change anything. David went out without fear because he went out with God and He knew that God had him and wasn’t going to let anyone defeat him. The only way to defeat our problem is with God, and we need to pray. Yes praying forces us to confront the problem we don’t want to face, but until we face it and pray the problem is going to stay there, taunting us. So let’s go get our sling shot and pray with Faith, because I know that God knows just where to plant the stone in the canter of our troubles.
Light houses
Recently I fell in love with a song about Cape Breton island that refers to the island being rimmed with lighthouses. The song says how the lighthouses are more than just beacons in the night, they are lights to guide the wanderer home, which of course made me think of Jesus. Jesus isn’t just a beacon in the night to help us on our way and when we are back on course we turn our sails away and continue without Him; Jesus is a bright light guiding us to Him, showing us the way back to truth and into His kingdom (our home). Jesus sends out His light, reaching over the dark expanse between us and Him and He touches us with His pure guiding hand and we are drawn home. Not only is Jesus a true, strong, active lighthouse but He has given us range lights along the way in the form of our pastors, and missionaries and evangelists and so on. A range light is a structure similar to a lighthouse, but it’s there primarily to guide ships through treacherous and shallow water when traversing a canal or other small body of water. So a range light is there for the small community, for the group that it can reach. Our ministry leaders are put in place to guide us through life and direct us toward our savior Jesus who is there to show us the only way into Heaven. Range lights are very important and sometimes do great work in assisting the lighthouse, like all people who do the work of Christ by reaching their community and guiding people into Jesus’ light. It doesn’t matter if your audience is small like a canal or endless like the ocean Jesus has a special place for you to shine. Sometimes all you need to do is be there, you may never know who you’ve helped by just shining your way through life. When we are guided into our savior’s presence and find a safe place in His harbor we are on our way to becoming more of His range lights to help others come to Him.
Tributary
Have you ever noticed how when the ocean tide goes out there are streams of deep water that get left behind. Part of the ocean has gotten caught by shifting sands and has become separated from the rest. Now imagine those tributaries are us and the ocean is God. We go through life as Christians walking with God. He flows in we flow in, He flows out we follow; but sometimes we flow someplace that God doesn’t want us to go and we enjoy that place. God will wait and wait but eventually we don’t want Him with us and we become shallow, tidal pools. Then we realize that where we are is not a place God is and that when we decided to separate from Him we chose a life of loneliness. We start to look around for Him only to find we have put a large expanse of sand between us and Him. But God always leaves ways for us to get back to Him and when we find those paths through the darkness we rush toward our saviour. Sometimes we sing along the way, sometimes we simply flow because if we forget where we are going and why we may end up back on shore. As we run to Him God rushes to us and pulls us into Himself so we are safe. Sometimes there are sand bars to cross and bit of debris floating along with us, but the expanse of God’s holiness and grace pulls us over the hard times and envelops the junk we bring with us so we are clean again and one with Him. Without the ocean, tidal pools are just salty ponds; Without Jesus, people are just empty shells. Follow the sea paths back to the ocean and let God heal you.
When at last you see the light
Everyone has moments of darkness; some last for a day others can last for several years, but when at last you see the light it’s like emerging from a tunnel in the mountains. You start to see a little gap and then it grows and grows until you emerge and are struck by the sunlight reflecting off the snow-capped summits. When you start to emerge from your dark place and the glory of God hits you and you suddenly see the world anew, things are very different and are so much better. Darkness is a device used to trap humans into following the wrong path. Most people are afraid of the light. The light exposes us and shows the world who and what we really are. In darkness we can hide our faults and our flaws, we can be anyone we want to be because no one can see the truth. But eventually the darkness gets to be too much, the little wrong doing here, the little harmful act there soon turn into catastrophic problems that we can’t run from and now the darkness isn’t dark enough to hide us, so we run into a deeper darkness that can cover these faults. Soon the darkness is so much we can’t see any light, that’s when we fall on our knees and say, “what have I done?”
There on our knees we are truly alone, until we feel a hand on our shoulder and our tear stained eyes look up to see a bright light. Jesus lifts us to our feet and we realize we were never alone, not even in the darkness. He guides us through the levels of darkness until His light shatters our binds and we are free. We don’t need the darkness to hide our flaws, we just need Jesus to heal us and soon our flaws will be gone. So search for Him when in the darkness and you will find the light.
My favorite blanket
Sometimes talking to God is like wrapping up in a warm blanket. You know the moments? Those times when you feel like your heart can’t handle any more and you begin to pray. Maybe not immediately, but eventually you start to feel a security and a peace, a warm feeling that comforts you. Like sitting on your couch and wrapping a blanket around your shoulders. The prayer is a hard struggle at first, you don’t know what to say except, “help me God!” “God where are you?” “Jesus, you said you would never leave me nor forsake me.” Then you feel a release of the spirit that says, ” but may your will be done Lord.” Then you find yourself praising God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, telling them how amazing they are and remembering the times they’ve saved you and pulled you through, and now you’re smiling. How does God do that? Isn’t He amazing! Jesus is a professional at finding lost sheep and drawing them into shelter from the rain, He can find you and bring you into a place of shelter too.
He will cover you with His feathers and you will find refuge in the shelter of His wings- Psalms 91:4
Carried in the cross 