“Not yet… look up there.”
In a cloud of pain, rage and confusion we find a dark cloud growing, and growing, and growing some more. The cloud is so dark and dense the it itself is comforting in comparison to the bright and painful world beyond us. We cling to and accept the cloud, we even find joy in it. Then a friend runs to our aid and we are pulled from our misery cloud for a moment. The friend feels triumphant on our behalf, then suddenly another friend takes the sleeve of the first, “it’s not done yet, look up there, the cloud lingers near by becuse the feeling of the person that created the cloud still linger. Unless those feelings are gone, the cloud will never truly leave.” We miss the false peace the cloud brought us and we embrace it again. (This is borrowed and paraphrased from a movie)
We try so hard to release ourselves into Christ’s hands and let go of our dark feelings, but we can never full get rid of those emotions on our own, and until we release them they will be forever coming back. Only with the help and power of The Holy Spirit can we be truly rid of the dark cloud. Only through Jesus can we have the strength to let it all go and be free.
Pray:
Dear Jesus. I know so many people who are going through life in a cloud of darkness that makes them feel hidden, safe, and secure. Jesus show them your power and love, set them free of their bondage in the way only you can, in that fully released way that makes it impossible for the darkness to return. Amen
Category: Devotional
The importance of lent
The importance of Lent
Lent has many different views. Some people view lent as one of the most important parts of the year, others don’t really understand it, and still others think it’s unnecessary. When I was a tween my mom and my aunt decided we girls (meaning the two ladies I mentioned plus my two cousins and myself) were going to start doing lent. It was required so we kids participated and of course turned it into a contest to see who would cave and use glitter lip balm or eat chocolate first. (We lented really dumb stuff as kids). As I got older and lent was a choice and not a requirement I gave it up. Why bother? What I noticed when I dropped the lent ball was that Easter came and went without me noticing it. Oh sure, I went to the Easter survice and watched Risen on TV, but the magnitude and solidarity of the Easter weekend had left me. Then as I was speaking to other Christians I heard the same thing. Easter had become a long weekend and nothing more. So I decided to test it. I joined my mother in lent the next year. I lented my evening Netflix binging and read my Bible instead. Two things happened. 1. I spent more time with God, had a deeper conection to the events we were comemerating during the lent weekend. 2. I felt the loss of what I had given up. It was something enjoyable that I used to unwind after a long work day and now it was gone.
By the time Easter came it had my full attention and God became the center of it like He should.
Lent forces you to put the suffering of Christ and the glory of the resurection into perspective. Now. I’m not saying that lenting meat or coffee is anywhere near the same as how Christ suffered. I’m saying that it reminds us that He did suffer. That this is a time of respect and honor. That lent is meant to remind us of what God gave up and help us gain perspective.
Are we being Deciples of Christ
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
1 Peter 3:15-17 NIV
There is so much packed into this verse that you almost have to take it piece by piece to make sure you heed it properally. Lately. And I don’t mean the past month, I mean the past few years. The word ‘Christian’ has lost it’s meaning. Christian used to mean Christ follower, like Christ. It used to mean changed and a better person, yet the word has lost it’s meaning as people have claimed it as an excuse for un-Christlike behaivior and speach. We are under a banner that used to represent the living Church and the living Word of God. Now we are being strangled by a banner that people have crawled under to hide their sins but have not repented or changed from them. To verbally assault people on the internet and then spew a Bible verse is heracy to say the least. To rebel against and speak offensively about our police and military who are trying to do their jobs and protect us is wrong. We are to live in a way that cannot be brought up before a court. We are to be humble and kind yet unrelenting, unrelenting in our belief in God not in our own opinions. We are seen as evil because of false christians who don’t even try to be like Christ. People then claim that they are right because Jesus was a rebel against injustice. That one makes me slap my forehead. Who was Jesus a rebel against again people?
If I randomly choose a raised hand in the crowd the answer will be the same as every hand out there. He was rebel against the Church leaders and the government.
Okay. You mean the leaders who were making it so that they were seen as higher than God and were opressing those who were already suffering? (Quick disclaimer: We have to realize that not all the church leaders of Jesus day were like this and when He chided them He was speaking to the ones who were being sinful and caliming it as God’s will, like what we have been seeing in our own ‘Christian’ people over the past several years)
You mean the government who was beating and slaughtering His people? I see a wave of nodding heads. Okay.
How did Jesus respond? Please don’t mention the table throwing thing, that was a one time event. How did He respond the rest of the time?
With words of rebuke some days, with shows of His might as healed people and spoke the thoughts of those who stood against Him, but mostly He responded with love. He loved them. He loved the begger by the pool of Bethsaida, He loved the guard who was raising a whip against a slave, He loved the phairasee who was praying out of habit but no substance for the million time. Thier siffering, the suffering they caused, and the indeferance broke His heart but He still loved them. All of them. All of us. Jesus wasn’t burning people in the comments section and then claiming to be praying for them, He didn’t hate one people group and love another, if He had He would have only saved the Jews and we as the gentiles would have been left in the cold, He certaininly didn’t cause violence and claim it as His right to stand against opression. He caused healing and generosity and, wait for it, LOVE.
You can be bold and powerful and meek and gentle at the same time. The Holy Spirit fights for us. The devil got into the church and made us become our own worst enemy. Take it back to the Bible. What would Jesus do?
No string attached
No strings attached with God
We as humans tend to put contingincies on everything. I will come if…. I will do that if…. even with God we tell Him we can do a certain thing for Him if….. please feel free to place your own excuses in the if blank, I have put my excuses in there in my mind. But God comes to you with no strings attached. He loves you unconditionally, He desires your presence as a parent desires to be near their child or a friend to be with their friend, God has no strings attached. He just wants you. You might say, “but He wants me to go to Church and pay tithes and spend time in prayer, those are strings attached.” No, God does not need you to do these things for Him to love you, He needs you to do these things so you learn to love Him and trust Him more. If you sinned right this second and in the same instant fell down and cried out to God do you think He would ignore you? No. He would come to your side anyway, because He loves you.
God requires things of us so we can go to Heaven, that is true, but He requires nothing of us for His love.
Valentine’s Day
Today is a day we celebrate love. Most people only bother to celebrate relationship love on Valentines but there are many different types of love, all of which deserve celebration. The most of which is the Fatherly, kingly love that comes through sacrifice. Jesus loves us more than we could fathom. He is also the only love most of us have who was willing to die for is. That is true love. When the ones you claim to love mean more to you than your very life. So you would, without question, sacrifice your life for their’s.
Today remember that the greatest love of all deserves some notice today too.
Selah
Do we forget the importance of Selah- rest and reflection on God?
We are all so very busy these days. We are rushing for this and rushing for that, the news is depressing and scary, life is crazy and the things that many of us used to make us feel at peace we just don’t have time for. We don’t even have time for God. But God gave us a day to rest and specific times to rest. You say ‘I know the day of rest, Sunday- but what are these times of rest?”
When reading your Bible, have you noticed where it says Selah? Do you know what that means? It means rest and reflect on God and what you just read. Selah is a time of rest. You can stress and rush and worry all you like but it won’t change anything. But time with God will heal you, it will help you focus, it will even help clear your mind and drive your fears away. We need to take time of Selah. We need to not forfeit running to the safe arms of God, it’s the only place you can truly rest.
Faith fall
Faith fall
Everyone talks about taking a leap of faith, just jump and see what happens. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that, in fact if you feel God drawing you into something and it seems crazy it may very well take a leap of faith to go where you are being led. The part we forget is that a leap signifies a fall. You aren’t going to jump and discover you can fly, you will begin to be taken by gravity eventually and that can be scary. The rush of air as it tears at your skin and is deafening your ears, the knowledge that the ground will hurt when you hit it and suddenly you stop trusting that God is going to catch you when you reach where He is waiting and you start to flap, trying to catch something- anything that will stop your decent until finally your hand grabs a ledge and you pull yourself up onto that ledge, catch your breath and look around. The ledge is nice, it’s safe, you could stay on this ledge happily and now you feel that maybe the ledge was God’s plan after all, not the foggy abyss below you. Too many of us take the leap of faith only to wind up catching ourselves on a ledge, if God wanted you there He would have put you there Himself, but you grabbed for that ledge, you clawed your way up there. A true leap of faith means wrapping your hands around your body and falling until God catches you, but now you are comfortable where you have caught yourself, so what do you do? Do you feel called to fall again and leave your ledge? Does your faith yearn to move past where you mind says you should stay? Maybe then it’s time to jump again, and this time, keep your hands in your pockets and let God catch you and put you where He wants you.
Pain
Stormie Omartan once said that after a dear friend of hers had died she came to a point in her grief where no one wanted to talk about it anymore because she had gone beyond the acceptable time of mourning. That’s ridiculous. Not how she felt but the fact that people treated her that way, and you want to know something? It’s true. I recall feeling that way after one of my friends passed away, my mom felt that way after her mother died, eventually people want you to move on, not for your sake, but because they are done hearing you talk about it. Come on people! Grief has no time limit. You will move on and then a sound or a smell will send you right back into it, and you know what? That’s okay. That is totally okay! When you are ready to move on you will, don’t feel rushed by other people, this pain is yours and they can never understand it nor can they feel it for you and of they could wear that pain for you they probably couldn’t bear it. But there is someone who can bear the pain for you, who understands it and has felt it too, His name is Jesus and He never grows tired of hearing you cry and mourn over loss, He never gets irritated when you bring up your agony, He will listen forever if you want Him to, because He loves you more than anyone else, and He will lift your pain and heal you. And if the pain comes back He will lift it again.
More
More
We all want to be more. More than we are at this moment, more than we dreamed we would be, more than enough. And it is not easy. All you can do is what is in front of you at this moment. Striving to be the best YOU you can be is not a bad thing, but the person you are right now might be the person you are meant to be. God often has to remind us to be still and to trust in Him, when things are not progressing or going the way you expected, when you are not reaching beyond your own expectations it can be hard to calm down and remind yourself that you are okay as you. God will grow you when He feels you are ready to grow. Trees don’t complain when they are a few branches short of how large the wished to be or when they have a smaller ring count than the tree next to them, they simply grow in God’s time and that is what we have to do. Wait on the Lord. Be still and know that I am God- Psalm: 46:10
Drenched
Drenched
We as humans tend to used descriptive language often. We say things we have built or roads we have taken are drenched with our sweat or our tears. When we redid our house I often said it was coated in my blood from the two or three minor scrapes I received while working on it. Drenched, coated. What if our lives were drenched and coated, not with blood, sweat and tears, but with prayer? What difference would we see? I once heard a mission planter say that he truly saw the difference come when he began to pray. He worked on his own for awhile, but then he started to coat everything in prayer and that was when things began to happen. My grandpa is a prayer, no matter what we do, before we do it he prays. It may take time but in a bit you see that exact prayer come true and crazy things that shouldn’t be possible start to happen. I used to think it was because he is a retired pastor and God just hears pastors better, but I found out after trying his technique that it is simply because he pours himself into a thirty second prayer before doing anything. His weakness in the moment gave God room to show His strength, so grandpa eventually got to a place where instead of becoming stuck and needing God to bail him out, he just handed it all over to God in the beginning and watched God work. If we drench our days, familys, selves with prayer we will see things begin to change. It may take time, but it will happen.
Carried in the cross 