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.
Category: Christianity
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
Defiant one
The most defiant words in the Christian vocabulary are “it is well with my soul!”
This statement stands us apart from the rest of the world. The devil tries to take us down using things that tear at our souls. Troubles that drag at our minds, sting at our hearts and eventually cause us to fall to our knees and beg for relief; these things the devil uses to try to hurt our souls. Our souls connect us to God; our bodies stay earthbound but our souls receive a new body in Heaven, that’s why the devil tries to get a hold of them. The moment we win against the devil is the moment when we are on our knees, head hung low to the ground, tears pouring down our faces and we hear ourselves say, “it is well, with my soul!” That’s the moment the chains shatter. That statement is an ultimate statement of Faith. It may not be well with any other part of us, it may not be well with any person who sees us but if it is well with our souls we win. God wins. God never leaves us in those moments, He is always there; but there are times when WE need to make the breakthrough happen. There are times when evil spirits hold our rescuer back and those are times when we need to pray until we feel the breakthrough. When we stare down the beast, though we are battered and torn and we look him in eye and we yell, “IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL!” That moment he will either turn and run or stare you down and snort out a hot breath of indignation and that’s when you keep repeating it, and repeating it and repeating it until it truly is well with your soul and then your beast will have no strength and he will flee. Weary after your prayer battle, when you fall with relief from your victory and you feel Jesus catch you, you will know that all is well, with your soul and that your comforter has made it to you to hold you safe and heal your hurt and take away your exhaustion. So make those 6 words your battle cry today. In the midst of it all stand defiant before the demons who bear down upon you and let them know that it is still well with your soul!
Who deserves the credit?
The deceiver comes only to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come to save you and give you life.- John 10:10
The devil makes nothing, all he does is destroy; only God creates. God creates all things, He writes, paints and even cooks. All works of our hands done to God are works of His hands. God has a perfect plan for all of us, and the things we can do. Without God there is nothing but destruction, with God there is light in the darkest tunnel, paths through the highest mountains, and an end to all trials. God does not force us into His plan; He guides us and directs us, but in the end allows us to make our own decisions and that’s why sometimes we fail, because we have fallen away from God’s path for us. God allows us to fail so that we will draw closer to Him and realize the potential He gave us. The devil is a copycat and sometimes tries to make the good things God does for us look like things we have done ourselves, without God’s help. It’s a good trick because many people fall for it, many think they have succeeded in life because of their hard work, and that does play a part in success but in truth success occurs because: A. God has given them success, or B. the devil has allowed them to succeed to draw them farther from God, but in neither situation did they get where they are on their own. The devil comes to destroy because he knows in the end he will lose and he wants to kill off as much of God’s creation as he can before that happens. Only through Jesus can we triumph over the devil, only through Jesus can we succeed in life to the fullest of our potential, because only Jesus creates and guides our paths.
Let go my wandering spirit part 2
Nothing we desire is coincidence. Now don’t misread this, some desires are set in us by the devil because he wants to lead us to sin, and some are simply human desires because we are, well, human; but many if not most of our desires are given to us by God because He is guiding us to become the person He wants us to be. I am often overtaken by a longing for the Ocean, not just to stand on her shores and admire her beauty, but to be out on her, sailing, so far out that I haven’t seen the shore for days and have no idea what lies ahead on the vast depth of horizon. I often wonder why I desire this, is God drawing me to something that involves the ocean? Am I going to end up somewhere out at sea with no connection to the land? Maybe, or maybe I read too many Jules Verne novels. But if God did end up sending me out to sea, to search the oceans, I would not be spiritually wandering from Him, I would be physically wandering with Him. Missionaries travel this whole world, because they are wandering in the guidance of the Spirit. Sometimes if your soul seems to be yearning to go someplace and/or do something it’s because God is sending you onto your next horizon, it’s because HE wants you to share in an adventure with Him. When Gandalf came to Bilbo’s quiet countryside home and found the hobbit smoking his pipe on a bench he already knew that the journey needed Bilbo, and Bilbo needed the journey; he wasn’t searching for just anyone to go with him on his adventure, he was searching for that one, particular hobbit because no one else would do. When God starts to make our souls uncomfortable and makes us desire to wander it’s because He knows that the journey needs our special touch, our unique character, and He knows that we need the journey and that in the end we will be even closer to Him. Because the amount of times we fall on this journey and the amount of times God catches us add up to make our faith stronger and our focus more clearly on Jesus as our goal. So let go wandering spirit and wander away, you never know what your wandering is preparing you for.
Let go my wandering spirit part 1
My absolute favorite quote from Tolkien is: Not all who wander are lost.
This statement makes me dream of far off places and uncharted road trips. I can imagine and visualize deep woods thick with ancient trees, their boughs reaching to me as if to guide me along my path. I picture chill mornings by a soothing campfire with a hot cup of coffee in my hand, my dog nestled on my knee and morning doves starting to sing a greeting to the day. Beautiful thoughts these may be, but what if we take a closer look at that phrase? Not all who wander are lost. Tolkien became devout Roman Catholic so there are Christ like connections to His novels and His quotes (whether he intended them or not). Many have written devotionals linking the “Hobbit” and “the Lord of the Ring” with the Bible; no one could possibly know if Tolkien would have approved of these derivative works or not but I doubt he would have minded. Looking at Tolkien’s Faith I wonder what He meant when he said “not all who wander are lost”? Scripture talks about a heart that is prone to wander from the will of God and from God Himself, but that is a different wandering than Tolkien meant here; Tolkien speaks of a physical wandering, a “letting go of the feet” if you will. Here is the point I get from “not all who wander are lost,” not all who wander physically are lost spiritually. Some of us have what may be referred to as a gypsy soul, a restless spirit that makes it so we must constantly be on the move. This may be the result of seeking a longing that only Christ can fill, a longing to know Him because we have wandered from Him, or never knew Him to begin with, but it may also be a need to wander set in us by God.
I love my captor
What a beautiful contradiction we live in as Christians. We who are captive yet free. We are captured by God’s love, held by His grace, set free by His mercy; we are free captives. We are not branded as a possession, but we are marked with a seal as precious goods. A seal that doesn’t say ‘ you are my property’ but instead says ‘you are my beloved.’ We are not held against our wills with chains, but instead we are held safe with strong, comforting hands. We belong to Jesus, yet we are free to leave. Once you’ve known Jesus as your personal savior you will never want life without Him. We are a contradiction, captives who are free. But to be a captive of love, to be held by grace, to be saved by mercy is a capture I never want to avoid or flee from. Capture me my savior and never, ever let me go! There is no place safer than in the hands of Jesus. The world says that our Bibles are books of hate, but they couldn’t be more wrong because our Bibles couldn’t be more full of love. All of us have things we don’t like in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean those things are wrong, they’re just hard to accept. We are all sinners, that’s not a hate statement it’s just a fact. Jesus loves us and came to save the sinner, that’s also in the Bible. Jesus loves us despite our sin, that’s not a statement of hate it has love written in it. We are captured by someone of love, who wrote us a book telling us how much He loves us and giving us examples of His love. If we didn’t have sin we wouldn’t have needed a savior. The devil caused sin to become great, and he took captive many people, he took people right out of the church and caused them to do evil. Filled with sorrow and rage God saw that the only way for these people to become clean was to send a perfect sacrifice. With pain overwhelming His heart God sent His most beloved and only son as that sacrifice. Now we are set free. The devil had made us prisoners, captives under a cruel master, slaves to his every whim; but Jesus made us brothers and sisters, friends, captives of a new nature because we are captives of love. I wouldn’t want to be anything else. My chains are gone, I’ve been set free, yet I choose to stay with my savior, because in Jesus my master is my friend. Choose Jesus, He chose you before you ever existed.
At the cross
The flowers in the photo above are called crown of thorns. Which I felt applied well to this weekend.
Crosses were used for executions often during the days of Jesus. Few deaths held as much fear as those planks of wood; it was slow and painful and humiliating, absolute suffering. I imagine being there, among the observers. Standing before the cross, staring up at the dirt and blood coated feet of the man hanging there, my stomach turned with sickness. The scent of sweat and death lingering in the air always and the spot never clear of it. Birds hungry from days in the desert circle above, chattering to one another, or to the people below, no one can tell. Agonizing moans and cries emanate from the accused and their loved ones, mixed with taunts and mockery from those who had nothing better to do than to watch. One man stands out among the other two, His pain seems deeper and His situation more controlled. He wears a crown marking Him a king, His sign reads, “hail, king of the Jews” but what king would hang on a cross? Blood pools beneath Him and His sorrow I can begin to feel. Then He looks at me and I am amazed by what I see. Eyes so filled with pain and sorrow are smiling with love. His being there feels like it holds a great purpose and suddenly the sky grows dark. The birds have scattered in fear and a great crack is heard from somewhere within the village. Looking back to the man I see with a broken heart that He is gone. Until a warm hand slips into mine and I look to see Him standing next to me smiling down with that same love I saw before. He leans over and whispers in my ear,
“You are worth this sacrifice.”
We are worth the sacrifice of suffering and death to the one who gave it all for us. Jesus gave up His kingdom, gave up His dignity, gave up what we would refer to as His pride; He gave up His blood, gave up His flesh and gave up His life, because He deemed us worthy. We are not worthy on our own, but because Jesus decided we are worthy that makes us worthy. He sacrificed because He loves us. He took the keys from the devil, unlocked the gates of hell and set the captives free because suddenly their sins were paid for and forgiven. He rose from the grave as an unmatched sign that He is king and He has conquered death. It may sound crazy, a battle between good and evil where one supreme power controls it all, but the crazy thing is it’s real, it’s happening and we are a part of it. When Jesus comes back I want to be found sitting at the foot of the cross. Where do you want to be found?
Leprechauns
Leprechauns are invisible faerys born out of Irish folklore. If you catch one you get to make a wish or get his pot of gold, it depends on the legend you follow. Many times however leprechauns bring misfortune instead of great wealth, they’re jokesters, tricksters, and their fun doesn’t usually bring anyone else fun.
Have you ever tried to find one? Searching the great outdoors for little, invisible, green men. You can search and search but you’ll never find him, they are masters of deceit. Now where little green Irish faerys can be fun and amusing, we know another mischief maker who likes to play nasty tricks while staying out of sight; he’s called the devil, or the chort, or the dark prince, no I’m not talking about Dracula! The real devil, and yes he is real, is not someone to make light of, without Jesus we would be in great danger of him all the time. He likes to make us chase after pots of gold too and when we think we’ve found one he pulls a nasty trick on us and we find ourselves far from God and dwindling in despair. The devil uses all sorts of wicked intentions to get us off track and draw us into his web. Like Frodo in Shelob’s lair we need a loving friend to brave the treacherous climb, sacrifice himself and save us. If it hadn’t been for Sam’s agápi for Frodo the ring would never have been destroyed, if Sam hadn’t been willing to risk sacrificing his own life Frodo’s quest would have ended right there, so close to the goal that they could see it. Jesus saved us from similar webs, webs of desire, deceit, disease and also death. Jesus did sacrifice Himself to save us from the devil who was toying with us, Jesus set us free. If it wasn’t for Jesus our quest of life would end at the first struggle, if it wasn’t for Jesus we would be lost, if it isn’t for Jesus we would be looking at the goal of our struggles and not be able to continue to the prize. Jesus saved, saves and will always save.
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Don’t search for trouble, search for Jesus, He’s the one you want to hold on to.
Carried in the cross 