Darkness. What an interesting word. What do you feel when you read the word ‘darkness’? Do you feel afraid, sad, comforted, powerful, weak, safe? Darkness can mean so many things to so many people. I have never minded the dark. In the dark you can see the brightest stars, or feel the peace of the quiet that comes with the falling of night. Maybe an owl will join you and you can listen to her song. Who knows what will come in the dark? My friend hates the dark. She says it’s oppressive and suffocating. Bad things come out at night like thieves or raccoons. It depends on your outlook. But God is the light that dispels all darkness. What does that mean? It doesn’t mean that God rips back the night sky and fills it with light and all day sunshine -though if He chose to do that I wouldn’t mind, especially with this 4pm sunset we have right now- it means that God dispels the darkness within you. What darkness? Interesting question. We all have darkness in us because we all live in a fallen world. The darkness that the devil seeps into us through lies and fear, that is the darkness that God drives out. Some people see dark as power. People who want to scare people will claim the power from hell as a weapon, that’s a mistake. Sure the devil could give you dark power to use, but at what cost? Light is always more powerful than darkness. It can always break the dark and fill the area with itself. Jesus is light because light is power. Not dark. I want to claim Heaven as my weapon not hell. But Heaven is all sugar plums and cotton clouds, right? Wrong. Heaven is a fortress filled with powerful warriors that will come down from Heaven to fight for you! Jesus wins every battle, including the battle on the cross. Claim Heaven as your power and true power will fill you! And don’t be afraid of the dark, the light of the world lives in you.
Category: searching
Soldiers
The day was bloody, so was every other day. The last battle cost more casualties than any other. The weary soldier has finally picked his way home and he has had enough! The Brass has come forward and is giving a speech to the survivors, if you could call them that.
“I know you are tired. I know today was worse than any of us ever thought possible. But I ask you to join with me one last time! To go out there and make a last stand! We have a way to take back a large part of the city and thus hold the enemy at bay from reaching our stronghold for a little while yet! Will you go with me!”
The crowd murmurs and black stares are turned on the man speaking. Finally a voice cries out over the din, “I have been through things worse than death, I have seen my friends and family killed! I have sloshed through the blood of those I called comrade. No! I will not go back out there! I am going home to spend the last few hours I have with my wife and daughter!”
The Brass nods his head sadly as the other voices in the crowd echo the same thing, “You who have faced the enemy and know the horrors will not be forced to face them again. But you who have face the enemy and know the horrors that are coming by all means go back home and wait for your family to know the same terror you do!” Then the man turned and strode away.
The soldier’s stomach lurched and his mind saw his loved ones slaughtered at his feet, he saw his child being dragged away and he heard her screams; those screams echoed in his mind as he turned and looked in the direction if his home and then picked up his gun and followed his commander back onto the battle field. The soldier never returned home, but he died knowing that those he loved were safe for one more day.
These are our soldiers! They aren’t violent glory seekers! They are fathers, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters, wives, husbands. They are loving hearts who saw their daughter run up to them and yell daddy and decided that they wanted to make sure the innocence never left her face. They are the watchers who protect. God follows His people into the fray! Don’t think for a second that He isn’t sitting in the trench holding the wounded soldier’s heads as they cry and pray. Don’t ever assume that God turns away when a person in uniform has to choose between his friends and the enemy! When my uncle went into battle during Desert Storm the enemy put children in front of them as they shot from behind. My Uncle said all you could do was try not to hit those children. Do you think for a second God condemns the soldiers who were forced to face a wall of kids? Or do you think the ones condemned are the ones using those children as shields? It’s not a question. Yes. I am saying harsh things and accounting harsh stories but people too readily accuse soldiers for the harsh things they have to do. It’s not their fault. They never asked for there to be war or death but they have the heart and the courage to fight to keep us safe so we can judge them without being killed or having our families killed. War is war, and until you have lived it you can never judge, and no one can ever say that God doesn’t love our soldiers! Because if you read the Bible you will know full well that He does! We will remebered them, honor them and be proud of them.
How does it end?
I have often said that once you write something down in a story, no matter how scary it was in the beginning, now that you know what the ending is it can’t control you anymore. The same is with our spiritual lives God wrote it all down it is all in the Bible and we know the ending so this world, the fears that can manifest themselves in this world, the one who controls this world, can not control us. We know the ending! God has told us how the story of this world ends.
He who is the faithful witness to all these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s holy people.
Revelation 22:20-21 NLT
In the end, the hero comes back for his people. In the end, all evil is destroyed. And like any great story, in the end there’s a massive party to celebrate the victory! In the end Jesus comes and takes us home. Nothing can hold us to this world, if we believe in Jesus, if we Proclaim his name, then there is nothing of this world that can control us.
The end.
Falling into myself
As humans we often describe ourselves as having a hole inside. That can mean different things for different people, but many still have the hole. And as people we do all we can think to do; we find a way to plug the hole. We plug it with entertainment, food, friends, even family. And it plugs up happily. Except… Just like wet sand to fill a gap in a wall, these small fixes -no matter how hard we try to make them stick- crumble and fall away. We need the right mixture to create concrete to repair the hole for good.
Friends and family are a good start, but to make the mixture complete we need Jesus. We need Jesus or else everything will fall apart. If we lack God our hole will eat everything it sees and fill up with nothing but darkness, hurting those around us. We all have a hole, except those of us who have Jesus because our hole has been filled by His perfect and unfailing concrete solution. We are whole through Christ.
I pray your hole is also filled by Him.
You may say that you still feel hollow even with God. Many do. Why? I once heard it said that Jesus fills our gaps but only the ones we let Him fill. If you still feel empty take a good look and see if your emptiness is something that you simply haven’t given over to Christ.
Fill up your soul with Jesus.
No God, that is the way it’s written.
God was walking through His Church one day and decided to ask people about their favorite Bible verses and why they liked them. It wasn’t that He didn’t already know the answer, just that He wanted to have His people tell Him themselves. God smiled as He spoke with different people and saw the mix of emotions on their faces as they explained why their favorite verse was their favorite. Out of the corner of God’s eye He spotted a man that He knew was simply there to put in his necessary hour of Church before going on with his week. God smiled sadly and went over to the man.
“Hello my child,” God said as He approached. The man bristled and nodded a greeting. God tried again, “how have you been? I’ve not heard from you lately.”
The man shrugged and mumbled that he was fine.
God smiled, “tell me, what is your favorite scripture?” God knew, but wanted an opening to discuss it with the man.
Irritated the man looked at God, “I can do all things. That’s my favorite verse.”
God tilted His head, “go on.”
“What?” The man growled.
“Go on and finish the verse.”
“That is the verse.”
God shook His head, “you’re missing part of it.”
“No I’m not! That’s how it’s written!”
The argument began to draw attention, embarrassed, the man walked away and left the building.
Back in his own house the man sat with his arms crossed, still angry about earlier. Suddenly his couch dipped down as another body sat on it. The man looked to see God sitting next to him. Startled, the man exclaimed, “what are you doing here! Don’t you have a Church to lead?”
God smiled, “but you are here.”
“So what? I’m just one person.”
God nodded, “but you are the one who needs me most right now.”
The man scowled, “why was I wrong about the scripture earlier? I quoted it right.”
“Yes, but you left out the most important part.
‘I can do all things, through Christ who gives me strength- Phillipians 4:13.
You left me out of the verse, just as you’ve left me out of your life.”
The man un-crossed his arms and looked at his shoes, “I was wrong God. I can’t do all things on my own.”
God put both arms around the man and drew him into a deep hug, “but you have me my son. You never need to do things on your own. Just trust me.”
Let me be in covenant with you
I have mentioned before that one of my favorite movies is Ben-Hur. The old version. Does anyone recall what causes one of the big turning points of the movie? Right, Juda saves the Roman officer who in-turn makes him his son and gifts him his ring as a sign of his covenant with him. Suddenly the man goes from slave to master and his whole world changes. In the same way, when Johnathan-Saul’s son-meets David he takes off his cloak and ring and bestows them upon David, acknowledging him as the man worthy to be the next king. Johnathan was ten years older than David and the rightful successor of Saul, so to willingly relinquish the throne was an act of true respect, and also (I feel) the act of a true ruler. He saw that David was full of God and that God had chosen him to take the throne, for the good of the people Johnathan gave away his birthright because he knew that David was the one who would lead Isreal the right way, only a true king would give up his throne for the good of the nation. Unlike Johnathan, Jesus was always the one we needed and no other could take His place; but like Johnathan, Jesus gave up His throne (temperarily) for the good of His people. Jesus also gave up his birthright. He had the right to be the only child of God, no adopted sons and daughters were necassary for the kingdom to continue, we orphans were never something that God needed in His kingdom, but because He loves us He sent His only son, the only child that He had, to save us, to die for us and to make a way so we could be truly part of the King’s family. He gave us His cloak and Ring and let us live with Him in glory. That is the love of a true king. Like Juda Ben-Hur, we were once slaves and now are inheritors of the kingdom. Like David, we were unworthy in the eyes of the world, but are accepted by the Prince and the King to be children in the kingdom. Let that sink in, and in your own words, thank God for all He has done. Oh how great the Father’s love for us.
Heart-lost
I may be afraid of my situation, But I am more afraid of losing heart in all this.-N
Fear. What an odd word. It’s one syllable, four letters, and has several contexts that it can be put into. Even though ‘fear’ is such a small word, it is a huge emotion. I once heard pain be refered to as the obliterator, because it takes away everything else. Pain and fear have the same result, they take away everything else. Fear clogs your senses, takes over your heart and mind until you have nothing else to give. Fear causes us to lose heart. Once we lose heart everything else slips along with it, our passion, our courage, our joy. Jesus said, “Take heart, for I have overcome the world.” Because He knew that human hearts were weak and we could easily lose ourselves in our fear. But Jesus has overcome fear and doubt, and when our hearts are in Him, we cannot lose hope.
Fold your hands
Fold your hands.
Sit quietly.
Pray silently.
Keep it all in and don’t bother God with your pain.
How many “religious” people claim this to be how we must act with our all powerful God? Too many.
Fold your hands, close your eyes, listen to the pastor, but don’t ever bother God. Don’t cry to Him, don’t be angry in His presence, don’t mumble about your fear. Pray. Quietly.
That’s not who God is. God wants the real us. The tear drenched, heart shattered, screaming at the top of our lungs, us. The hurt and angry; just needing someone to talk to; someone to make it right, us. The too afraid to let our voices be heard aloud, us. Sometimes we need to pace and sweat and rip our souls apart when we pray; and that’s okay. Sometimes we don’t have words, just feelings, God understands still. Sometimes we laugh and smile as we talk to God; or get lost in song, and that’s fine too. God wants US. Our messes and failures, our victories and triumphs, He wants it all. Just pray- Don’t worry what it sounds like.
Image is ‘Worn out at eternity’s gate’ by Van-Gogh
Do all to the glory of God?
To do all to the glory of God sounds… difficult. How do we brush our teeth to God’s glory? Or wash the laundry? Or…ugh….do the dishes?
I once heard a pastor answer this question in the only way that actually makes sense.
‘Do all to the glory of God means to do all as if you were doing it with God. Do it all enthusiastically -if possible- and do it without grumbling.’
There is so much that feels like too much work, but if we are doing it with God than He will make our task easier. Perhaps not physically- but mentally, because we aren’t doing our task alone.
Today I was removing a tree branch that was over our driveway and scraped the roof of our vehicles. I set up a chair and got my hack saw rolling. I didn’t have a chain saw with me and was making do. It was a hard and tedious task but I felt joy in knowing that God was standing behind me, tugging back and forth on the saw as I did. My dog paced the base of the chair and looked at me, incredulous eyes burning with the question, “are you nuts!” Yes. Standing on a chair with a saw to remove a branch was stupid, even my dog could see it was unsafe. But I was fine because God helped me. And guess what? I failed. The branch didn’t budge. It was too thick to take off manually. God is always with you, helping you and guiding you, that doesn’t mean you will always succeed, sometimes it is just not possible for what you want to work out. Don’t worry. God will help you find a new solution. And because I did my best with a good attutude, I had fun trying.
Do all, to the glory of God.
You don’t know what God is doing behind the scenes, so never give up and never stop striving. Don’t let fear stop you from seeing God’s great gifts for you. I know first hand that staring your dragons in the eye can feel catastrophic; your body begins to reject your decision causing your internal organs to protest and your muscles to feel like jelly, and then your mind seems to second guess your heart, next thing you know you are being throw into the mouth of a giant whale by the other people in the boat. Because when God has a purpose for you, it won’t be easy. You will fight and claw your way through every moment some days, but that isn’t reason enough to not follow God’s plan. You will never be the hero of your story if you aren’t willing to fight. The best thing about your story being the fact that Jesus has already won the war, your battle is just a fight for one small part of your life, the eternal battle has been waged already, just don’t let the enemy have your part of the kingdom, Don’t give up! Jesus has planned everything for you and you will win this because He is fighting along side you!
Carried in the cross 