Sometimes it feels like we are clinging to Jesus by a thin thread. Like we don’t have anything left but a desire to hang on. Standing on a dark expanse of crumbling stone and seeing nothing around to pull you out. The earth shakes and more of what you are standing on falls away into the pitch black below. All you have is a thread, not large enough to even hold onto. You know it will slip from your fingers if it is all you have to cling to so you wrap it around and around and around your hand until there is no slack left in it to keep wrapping. At that moment the ground gives way and you descend with the debris into the darkness. Suddenly the thread catches and you jerk to a stop praying the thread does not break. The thin material cuts into your hand as it holds your weight and the pain draws forth tears. You feel as though your one lifeline will slice right through you and drop you to the blackness below. Your eyes close as a light appears above. You feel two hands clasp upon your wrist and lift you up, the sting of the thread releases as it slowly drops away and you open your eyes to see that the pain of the thread that you thought would slice through you was the thread tightening as you were being pulled up away from the crumbling world below.
Jesus will NEVER let you truly fall. There will ALWAYS be a thread to cling to and that thread, no matter how painful it may seem at the time, will be helping you pull away from the discarded world that filled your view with darkness. Jesus will always be reaching down and drawing you up into His arms; trust Him, He IS there and He will not give up because of the pain we cause Him, because that same thread is wrapped around His hand as He draws us out, it cuts into Him the same way it cuts into us. Our hurt filled words that crush Him as we are dying inside will never make Him leave us. He stays and pulls us up into a healing hug and cries with us. Because He loves you. He loves us. He is love.
Category: free
Monsters like me
How would you classify a monster?
A wild haired human-like creature, with glowing eyes staring at you from behind rusted steel bars.
A four legged animal (ish) thing with long fangs and a thick chain holding it to the ground as it snarls.
How about a great dragon puffing out smoke and screaming out fire from the contains of it’s cave?
Or would you say me? I am the monster. No one understands the pain holding me behind these rusted bars, the glow in my eyes are simply tears. I snarl out of fear as my guilt holds me to the ground, and my shame keeps me bound. The puffs of smoke are to hide behind, the scream of fire simply a scream of need. No one gets me. Everyone feels this way at one time or another. No one gets me. It is true. No person can possibly get you, the true you, the real you. You think if you are exposed as the true person you are, those around you will see the monster and run. But Jesus has seen that monster. As you lean back and cower in the dark, dank corner of your cage fearing the light; Jesus comes and reaches out a hand to touch you. The brilliance of His presence is almost agonizing, as you hear all the people who have ever brought you down speak into your mind once again; because the pain they have left is no longer hidden in the dark as Jesus draws it to the light. The steel chains burn as Jesus reaches forward and points to your hand. You look down at your clenched fist and slowly hand your fist to Jesus. He gently unfolds your fingers and takes the keys to your chains and cage out of your hand. He unlocks you and carries you out into the sun and suddenly you realize, you are not the monster that you saw, and you see that you are the one who locked yourself in that cage. Your emotions allowed everything anyone ever said about you to make you feel unlovable, so much so that you locked yourself away. Allow Jesus to take the keys and set you free. Permit His love to burn away the fear and pain. He is not judging you, He loves you. Trust Him. You are not a monster. You ARE a child of God.
Credit to owner for image
Filled with nothing but hope and love
We dont usually see empty as a good thing, but when the tomb became just an empty hole it was the most joyous day in all of Heaven and earth. When we think empty we usually think void, lacking.
The grave was void, it was void of death. It was lacking, lacking the power to hold Christ and keep Him from rising. It was empty, empty of the sorrow that death brings. It was also full. That big space of nothing was filled to the brim with hope, love, new life and the glittering remnants of the glory of God.They say that love begins at 0. Does that 0 not look like a big empty hole to you? It does to me. Love began before the cross, on the cross and in the empty tomb. Love began in a manger in a little town called Bethlehem. Love is 0, love is a big, wondrous, EMPTY tomb. Because Jesus is no longer on the cross, no longer in the grave, today He rose, soon He is coming back again.
Happy Easter
Still a slave
They say we are all prisoners of this world, but when we become Christians we are not; only through Christ are we free from this world so why do we refuse our freedom.
We are like slaves who get so used to their masters that they can’t leave them. This world abuses us, neglects us, starves us, beats us and yet we are so used to it that we refuse to be free from it.
Jesus is right there saying ‘follow me and I will show you how to be free.’ And yet we are sitting back, clinging to this familiar world, refusing to budge because freedom scares us. As soldiers say, true freedom you have to work for and fight for. We are constantly having to fight against the slave master of this world because he knows we are afraid and he knows it’s easy to seduce us into a sense of complacency where we fall into his clutches. But Jesus is stronger than the evil and He is fighting on our side.
No matter how long it takes no matter how hard we fight against Him Jesus will always be there with a nail scarred hand stretched out toward us, pulling us out of our prison and showing us the way of the free.
‘My chains are gone, I’ve been set free. My God, my savior has ransomed me and like a flood his mercy rains. Unending love, amazing grace.’-Casting Crowns
A caring touch
Why would the king, who has the finest flowers in His royal garden, care enough to climb through the forest to find a back woods rose like me and carry me home? He puts me in a crystal vase on His dresser and sets me in a place of honor among His royal flowers. He finds delight in me even though I am prickly and plain. He gives me special care because He sees my petals wilting and He makes sure that I always have enough of all I need. Why would a royal king dirty His hands to pack my roots with fresh soil? As He labours over all the flowers around me I see His sweat stained brow, I notice the mud smeared on His face and I see His hands bleeding from the thorns of the plants He loves. I feel unworthy to be sitting on His dresser as He works hard, but what can I do? I am simply a flower. He caresses my leaves as He walks by and smiles. What more is there for a flower to do but to bring joy to her master?
Perhaps sometimes that is all Jesus wants from us; for us to see all He is and to bring Him joy by honoring Him with all we can do. As a simple flower I can make someone smile with my sweet scent, as a common herb perhaps you can add flavour to a dish or become a healing medicine.
This is a fanciful way of saying we are all individuals, different and unique. Jesus loves us all for who we are and is brought joy when we use what we can do to honor Him.
Dragons and kings
God is not like smaug, the great dragon from the Hobbit, where when we come into His lair trembling and say “I had heard stories about you but I did not believe them,” he stands back from us flexing the scales across his chest and blowing a snort of smoke out of his nose he proplaclaims, “and do you now?”
In contrast when we come up to Jesus trembling saying, ” I had heard stories of you my Lord, but I did not believe them.” He looks at us with love and responds, “I know, I have been waiting for you to come and see me for yourself.” Then He hugs us and all our fears and sins and scars melt away and not only do we believe the stories we now know the man they are about and we know He loves us. His gentle embrace following us everywhere we go until we get to live with Him in His kingdom. There is no dragon pride, just the gentle/powerful/all knowing/unending love of a king.
(Credit to owner for the cover image)
Open handed combat
When I was in high school I took basic karate. One of the main things drilled into the class was the fact that karate means open handed combat, which means that our combat is self defense it is not meant as a form of attack. If we apply this technique to life we get a person entering their day open minded to the people around them and empty handed of judgments. When we go out into this world we are stepping onto the mat and as Christians the way we respond to daily jabs and kicks need to be censored according to our teachings. In martial arts your fight technique reflects that of your teacher, in the same way our daily response to life needs to reflect Jesus. We enter the arena holding nothing against the people we will face, we come in open minded to their situation. Picture this. Bright blinding lights, a roaring crowd and a tall battle scarred warrior faces you down as your toe touches the mat, there’s no turning back now. You see that angry face, the deep creases of old battles lost and you gain your opinion of the warrior. They step closer and you step up to them, you don’t yet know what will happen next all you know is this person has been hurt too many times and it is your turn now to decide, do you attack or do you help? Do you reign judgement and add to their scars or do you give compassion and help the scars heal? Your mind open and clear so you can hear from the Holy Spirit and see this person’s needs and you realize all they need is a comforting hand. As the vision fades away; the crowds and the lights dim, you see the warrior in a new way, the way Jesus sees them. We shouldn’t enter the arena to fight we should enter to help; but sometimes in this daily life we Christians forget that we are not here to judge and attack the people around us, we are here to help them and in doing so show them Jesus. That’s the point to open handed combat, coming without prejudices and without judgements so you can help heal this world just as Jesus came without a sword or armor as a gentle baby in a manger.
When the devil comes calling let it be Jesus who answers the door
How often have we felt like the world has delivered a spin kick in the stomach to us and then laughed as we grimaced in pain? Too often I’m sure. We have all been there. Down and almost out, wishing we could crawl from the fight ring of life and curl up in the comforting shadow of the stands where nobody can see us. We close our eyes and try to wish away what we have been dealt, but when we open them the hurt is still there. We blame everything. The world, people, ourselves, even God, but when it comes down to it there’s only one to blame for all misery and that’s the devil. He is knocking at the door to our hearts and our minds waiting for us to open up even just a little, and because we aren’t letting him in he brings a battering ram with him. Victory in such times comes from response. If we let Jesus take over and respond as He would want us to then we win. The devil won’t stay long if it’s Jesus who answers the door. Whenever the hit comes, where ever you are, however it presents it’s self Jesus is right there ready to defend you; He is a loving and jealous God and He is very protective of His people. I know that it’s hard to understand why the pain happens at all but the trying of our Faith produces endurance; sometimes suffering is required of us and it is impossible to understand why a living God would hurt His people, but He isn’t the one hurting us, yes He is allowing it, but He isnt causing it. I once heard a pastor say, “don’t pray away your blessings.” What he meant was if we never suffer than we never get to see God save us. Miracles don’t happen for people who don’t need them. We must put all of what we go through in God’s hands and respond as Jesus would no matter how hard it is because that is how we reach a break through. Whenever the devil comes to the door step back and let Jesus answer He has defeated the devil before.
Behind the mask
We all have pain in our lives; pain we feel each day, pain that causes us to fall asleep on tear-drenched pillows. The peace is in the fact that the pain won’t last. Jesus hates it when we hurt so He reaches down a hand to hold. Jesus knows the good that will come from our suffering but He will not allow us to suffer to alone; He is always with us. A little while back I had fallen from a rock wall and had landed on my face. Not wanting to go through my day with the big cut down my lip showing I proceeded to cover it with make up, guess what? It almost completely disappeared; on the surface everything seemed to be fine so no one knew the pain behind the makeup. All people use cover-up throughout their lives so that on the outside all looks fine and no body knows what’s going on on the inside, no body but Jesus. Does anyone remember the song ‘don’t cry out loud’? For how many people is this song their life motto? “I’ll be fine, I can stand strong, this is my problem not anyone else’s.” Sound familiar? This life has a way of knocking us back, but Jesus is there so we don’t hit the ground. We fall into His strong arms and like the best friend HE is, who always has our backs, Jesus straightens us up and faces our giants with us. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that we as people don’t feel comfortable sharing our pain with others, but we must never forget that Jesus is sharing our pain with us. He feels it too and understands. He cried alone in the garden so that we will NEVER have to cry alone. As you work at moving through your pain please remember, most of the people around you have pain they are moving through too and that they need you to be gentle with them, just as you need others to be gentle with you.
Crystal chains
We are all prisoners until Jesus sets us free; once we accept Jesus into our lives as our Lord and savior He frees us from all our chains. I have said this many times before in other posts. This time I would like to discuss our beautiful bracelets, the things we add to our lives that we think are so wonderful but in fact are new chains tying us down and pulling us away from our savior. Most people have either owned, held, or seen crystal bracelets. They are sparkling and vivid, beautifully catching the eye; once you place the bracelet on your wrist you realize it’s light and after awhile you don’t even notice it’s there, until it catches on something. The same goes for our crystal chains. We have these little things we bring into our lives that seem glittering and beautiful, we don’t even notice something is off with them at first. We have these beautiful little things for a short amount of time and now we don’t even notice them because we are so used to them being part of our lives, until they catch on something, say our conscience. Until our crystal chains catch on God we may not even notice that they were drawing us away from Him. I won’t make it easy and point out the crystal chains I see around me because there are many on my own wrists that I am sure I haven’t noticed yet, so who am I to judge yours. I also almost know for sure that at least one chain you never realized was thus has popped into your mind while reading this, I know that a couple popped into my mind while writing it; the nice thing about crystal is it shatters really easily. On that note I say break off your chains and be free once again in the name of Jesus! Who the Son sets free is free indeed. Be chain-less today!
Carried in the cross 