Devotions for Life

All for Jesus

2009-08-31T14:48:00.000-07:00

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. -- Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. --
Colossians 3:23

When I tire of the daily grind
and struggle to go on
I lift my hands to the heavens and cry,
Its all for you, my Lord!
Then imagine it was He who supped
With these tiny crusted spoons
And wash them with my whole heart
While singing to Him a song.
I neatly fold His little clothes
And place them in His drawer
And scrub the floors of His footprints
The sticky crumbs and all
Then seeing His smile
in my children’s eyes
Hearing His joy in their shouts
I find its not that hard to do
When I remember who its truly all about.

His Faithfulness, My Gratitude

2009-06-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

When a seed of inspiration is planted in my heart, I know eventually I'll have to write it down. I usually chew on it for a few days hoping it will make its way to paper. Sometimes I chew on it for so long that time escapes me and another inspiration comes along before I have a chance to get the first one down. Even this, I am finding, works together for good.

Recently I had heard of the term "life verse," a bible verse that has such special meaning that it seems to sums up a person's life. I noticed that more and more people seemed to have one-- they'd stencil their special verse on walls in their homes or add them to their email signatures--it was something I'd never heard of and found very intriguing. Naturally, I wanted desperately to find mine. I spent hours pouring over scripture, calling to mind the verses I'd clung to through the years. Still, nothing seemed just right. None seemed to call my name. The only thing that had ever truly touched me in that way was a song I heard sung at church, but could a song be a life verse?

The song had been sung at a poignant moment by our music minister, who is battling cancer. After many weeks of absence, one Sunday he was rolled out onto the stage in a wheelchair, wearing a surgical mask to protect his delicate immune system. I watched in awe as he lowered the mask, raised the microphone to his lips and sang:

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"

My eyes filled with tears as I wondered how someone who was suffering so much could sing those words. At the same time I knew exactly why he sang it, because his chorus was in my heart too. All I have needed, God's hand has provided. Through all the trials, the tears, the laughter, He has been so faithful to me. Those were the words I connected with, but I didn't know who had written them, and a life verse should definitely be something biblical. Oh well, gonna have to chew on that some more.

It so happened that the church had given out bracelets that same day that read "Pray for Bro. Jerry - Lamentations 3:23" My six-year-old insisted on wearing one home and wearing it to school the next week to remind him to pray for Brother Jerry. Occasionally I'd see the bracelet lying around the house, and always wonder about the Lamentations part. Not being an Old Testament scholar, it sounded to me like a book of complaints. Some day I'd have to look that up.

Meanwhile, one night last week I sat down to read today's entry from my women's devotional bible. The verse for the day: "It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." Lamentations 3:22 (There's that word again.) I could think of more than a few times in my life when I don't know how I wasn't consumed, but for the Lord's compassion. I decided to look up the context of this verse, and what did I find in the very next verse? "Great is thy faithfulness." Whoa, back up-- I've got to read the whole chapter now!

What I found there was my own life's story, (the story of many Christians I'm sure) tucked away in the pages of a little known book of the Old Testament. Bear with me as I recount a portion of it here.

"I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.

He has set me in dark places.

He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out.

He has made my chain heavy. Even when I cry and shout,

He shuts out my prayer.

He has made my paths crooked.

He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces.

He has made me desolate.

My soul still remembers and sinks within me. "

"This I recall to my mind, therefore I have HOPE.

Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,

because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning;

GREAT IS YOUR FAITHFULNESS. “

"It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.

Let him sit alone and keep silent, because God has laid it on him;

There may yet be hope. For the Lord will not cast off forever.

Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion

according to the multitude of His mercies.

I called on Your name, O LORD, from the lowest pit.

You have heard my voice.

You drew near on the day I called on You, and said,

“Do not fear!” O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul.

You have redeemed my life."

I could write volumes on how each of those verses applies to my life, not to mention the many other verses of the chapter, many filled with symbolism and parallels to infertility, stillbirth, and even preeclampsia. Suffice it to say I found my life verse, or life chapter as it were.

Well that's what I had planned to write one day soon. Then tonight I sat down to fold clothes and flipped on Joyce Meyer. She was talking about the power of thankfulness against the enemy. While complaining opens the door to Satan, she said, being thankful shuts it in his face. I liked that idea and began thinking of ways I could change my litany of complaints into thank yous.

"Thank you Lord for these clothes I am folding AGAIN, and for the sink full of dirty dishes, and for my ears ringing with the shouting of children, because it means I have a family to take care of." Those were hard words to say, until I really took the time to REMEMBER. I remembered a time, not so long ago, when there weren't very many clothes to fold. There were very few dishes to wash. There were no shouts--in fact there was often no noise at all in those days. Just silence, emptiness, and tears.

So tonight I am thankful. I'm ashamed of ever being tempted to complain. As strange as it sounds, I'm thankful I've had the privilege of walking "in dark places." I just pray I never forget for a second what He's done for me, where he brought me from, and that a sense of that wonder gets passed along to these precious children. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!

The How

2009-04-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

It's tough being a woman who feels responsible for the HOW.

To any man reading this, that may sound strange, but I think every woman can instantly relate. How are we going to do all we need to do in 24 hours? How can this problem be solved? How is that situation going to work out? Those questions don’t just ring in our ears, they demand answers. We’re so accustomed to our self-appointed role of responsibility, especially when it comes to our families, we don’t even give it a second thought. After all, if anyone is going to figure out how, its going to have to be us! The biblical truth though, is that our daily struggle to “figure it out” amounts to nothing more than a great unnecessary weight on our shoulders.

Two bible verses point the way to the truth: 2 Peter 2:9 and Psalm 103:14. Both begin with the same four words: The…Lord…Knows…How. “The Lord KNOWS how to rescue godly men from trials” says Peter. “The Lord KNOWS how we were formed, and remembers that we are dust” sings David. Its okay that I don’t know how its all going to work out. Praise the Lord, God KNOWS!

Look deeper and the truth of those words gets even richer. Because He “knows how we were formed” he knows our needs better than we do. Because he “remembers that we are dust” he doesn’t expect us to have perfect Godly wisdom. According to Peter, not only does he know “how to rescue the godly,” but he also “knows how…to hold the unrighteous for punishment until the day of judgment,” so we need not be concerned with the wrongdoings of others. I can't tell you feeling of relief it brings every time I think of those precious words, "The Lord knows how." Maybe its because freedom from that responsibility brings the freedom to embrace the joy we were made for.

As I ponder on what it means to trust God with the hows of life, I find myself coming back once again to Jesus’ command that we become “like little children.” I’m blessed to have two beautiful examples in my home of exactly what little children are like. I can tell you that they don’t think a lot about the hows of life—they just tell Momma or Daddy what they need. Last night one of my little ones came to me in the night with tear filled eyes, and said “Momma, my ear hurts.” He didn’t know how I was going to make it better, but he trusted that somehow I would. He didn’t tell me he needed two teaspoons of ibuprofen, a warm towel, and a call to the doctor in the morning. He simply said “it hurts.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if we returned to that point of simplicity in our relationships with God? It is a simplicity that calls for merely articulating our simple need, without eloquence or rehashing the all painful details, (the Lord knows them after all) and then thanking God that he can take it from there. Sure, we will still have work to do, but we trust that through the gift of his holy spirit, we will have both the strength to do our part and the wisdom to know what it is. When we look back, we'll be amazed at how Daddy made it all better. What loving parent would do any less?

Choosing Joy

2009-01-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Best selling Christian author Joyce Meyer recommends starting each day by proclaiming “Something GOOD is going to happen to me today!” By developing an attitude that expects good things, she says, we position ourselves to face the day with joy and receive God’s blessings. So many of us wake up instead with a list of burdens on our minds, hoping just to make it through the day without a catastrophe. Even worse, we sometimes start the day with negative expectations, saying things like “here goes another cold, dreary day” or “another boring day in the office.” How different would our lives be if we faced them expectantly, and with joy?

Just a few weeks ago, we wished each other a “happy” new year. What is this “happiness” we’re wishing for, and where does it come from? Society tells us that it comes from success, wealth and material possessions. We even ate black-eyed peas on New Years Day to ensure our wealth in the new year. And yet statistics show that all across the country, the highest rates of suicide consistently occur in the wealthiest communities. Media mogul Ted Turner lamented “Success is an empty bag, but you’ve got to get there to know it.” Too often we spend our lives striving for “empty” things, taking for granted those things that bring true joy and contentment—our families, our health, and our faith, to name a few.

On the flip-side, Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Perhaps true happiness is simply a conscious decision to be joyful regardless of circumstances. Happiness and joy are not the same things, after all. Webster’s dictionary defines happiness as (1) prosperity and (2) a pleasurable or satisfying experience. Joy, however, is much deeper. Webster defines it as “the emotion evoked by a sense of well-being.” In life, we will not always prosper, and certainly not all of our experiences will be pleasurable, and yet we can have a lasting sense of well-being. It is the feeling that, as the popular hymn says “it is well with my soul.” Where does that steady sense of well-being come from in our busy, unpredictable world?

The apostle Paul writes “I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” (Phillipians 4:12-13) Paul had found contentment, and nothing could rain on his parade! Maybe we're not all on the spiritual level of Paul, but there's a confidence in Paul’s statement we can all emulate. It's the confidence that faces each day expecting victory, resting in a power greater than ourselves. That is the secret of true joy. Lets all make a resolution to start our days expectantly, confidently, counting our blessings instead of our troubles, and joyfully seeking out the blessings that lay ahead.

The Puppeteer

2008-04-23T04:57:00.000-07:00

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." Galations 2:20

As a baby Christian, I used to operate under the mistaken belief that God was something like a marionette puppeteer. You know those puppets that dance suspended from strings, with the puppeteer up above wiggling little sticks to make them move. In this scenario of course, I was in full control of my own strings, while he controlled everything else in my world. This was my infantile concept of surrender, and it made perfect sense at the time. I was certain things would go smoothly now, so long as He did his job and I did mine. Since I had only three strings to keep a handle on--my thoughts, words and actions, I should be able to dance along nicely, provided of course I didn’t break any major laws along the way. He in turn would keep the myriad of other strings out of my way and maybe give me a nudge now and then if I was about to make a wrong move. It sounded good to me, and I felt like a good little Christian for recognizing that I couldn’t control all the strings.

To my dismay, I still continually found myself tangled up. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so why had He let His strings fall? If I had made a wrong turn and entangled myself, why hadn’t he warned me? It was like navigating in a darkened room, bumping into the walls, and to top it all off someone kept dropping a net on me. (Little did I know then that it was a safety net.)

Little by little, I began to see that I wasn’t going to be able to pull my own strings after all, at least not without help. So I stretched my spiritual muscles and learned to consult him before I made any sudden moves. I realized He doesn’t nudge, but He does whisper. So I learned to be quiet occasionally and listen. This was better, but still exhausting at times. My strings seemed to be multiplying, and I had so many decisions to make. It seemed some days He required too much of me. When I had no choice but to collapse, I occasionally would ask him to just hold this string or that for me, just for a while, until I could get myself together. It seemed that whenever I did that, my dance became beautiful, appearing effortless, and the audience applauded my skill. I took a great bow for my lovely performance, patting myself on the back all the way up.

Wrapped up in my success, I usually took back the reins and drifted happily along my merry way. Until of course the next time I was overwhelmed, remembered, and got back in touch with my rescuer once again. I imagined he must have let things fall apart when he started to miss me. We ebbed and flowed this way for years, and could have continued forever I imagine, from one exhaustion to the next, but thankfully, He wasn’t content to leave me in that condition indefinitely.

One day not so long ago He seemed to be harping on me about joy, and the joyful life he wanted for me. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve known joy,” I thought. It doesn’t last forever. No one can be joyful all the time. After all, life is just plain tiring! “Come to me, and I will give you rest,” he said. “I know, and I appreciate that, but eventually, I’ve got to get pick up my strings again and get back to work.” I really thought I heard a chuckle. “Silly child,” he seemed to say, “you still think you’re a marionette, don’t you?”

That was the same day I saw my small child playing with his favorite toy, a little lamb I call “Lamby-pie” which he uses to perform mini-theater on our coffee table. It’s just a little scrap of fleece with no life of its own, but when he puts his hand inside, you should see that puppet come to life. He tells it what to say and it speaks. He gives it a voice and it sings. He propels it forward and it runs, leaps and dances. What a convincing show it is, although we all know Lamby is completely hollow and lifeless without my son’s life working from the inside.
“Inside.” The word rang in my ears. Could it be that all these years I had never truly let Jesus inside?

“Hollow.” Could it be that I was too full of self to make room for Him?

“Lifeless.” Did being fully alive in Christ really require that the old me “die”?

And how silly would it be to ask if Lamby were tired after such a performance? After all, it was not her strength, but his, propelling her. Could Jesus’ life within truly propel me forward, requiring nothing from me but submission? Could it be that easy?

It seemed clear now what needed to be done. All along, while I scrambled for dear life, he had extended the invitation. Just die already. Break ties with self. Stop trying so hard, and let me in. Start living the life you were created for.

I realized it’s not about paying a visit now and then. It’s about abiding. It’s about being a live-aboard vessel for Jesus. Its about being the hands and the feet and the voice and the mind of someone far stronger than myself, someone perfect who never lacks wisdom in uncertain times, and whose joy is unaffected by circumstances..

In reality, I had never been asked to control anything. That had been the world talking. I quickly realized that dying to self goes against every fiber of our “me” culture, and that I had to also die to any concern I once had for what the world says.

I’m still practicing the fine art of being “in” this world and not “of” it. I think as long as we are in this flesh, that will not come naturally. But at least now I know who I am-- a willing scrap of fleece in the Savior’s hand. Nothing more, nothing less.

Mine Eyes Have Seen

2007-02-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

I've heard that faith consists in believing in that which we have not seen. In that case, mine must not be "faith" at all. For I have seen with my own eyes and felt with my own arms that which I rest my faith upon many times over. More than once from deep in a trench I had dug for myself, with no hope in sight except in Him, I've witnessed his mercy swiftly applied as he lifted me to a place of safety. Too many times to count I have felt the shifting winds, even as I cried out to Him in prayer, and watched the clouds of circumstance part, giving way to his power. I'm sure I've even seen His very face, shining with all its glory in the smiling eyes of my children. I've felt his awesome love from the moment they were placed in my arms. His gentle voice is always there in their laughter, His peace unmistakably visible in their sleeping forms. I've watched him build and grow a beautiful marriage, day by day through every trial, and seen his provision in the bounty that surrounds us. His light is all around me, even in darkness, where the family he gave me lives and breathes. In the presence of such blessing, how can one speak of not having "seen"? No, for me faith is in remembering, observing, appreciating and resting in the very visible, very touchable love of God.

Fish and Loaves

2006-10-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

Every now and then, God speaks. He doesn’t speak with a booming voice or a bolt of lightening, but His message comes through as clearly as if it had been broadcast on the six o’clock news. Often, like today, it comes through in a series of seemingly unrelated events, and almost always involves the words of a child.
I had been feeling frazzled lately, to say the least. Overwhelmed is more like it. I hadn’t been praying as earnestly as I should, probably because it seemed that what I needed was impossible. I needed to be two people at once. I needed more hours in the day. To quote the old adage, I needed to squeeze blood from a turnip. So why bother? All I could muster this morning was “Lord help me.”
By noon, I was happily surprised at how smoothly the morning had gone, and frankly astonished at the number of checks on my to-do list. I found myself wondering how all that could possibly have happened—had the clock stopped? Picking up my son from preschool, I asked him what he’d learned today. “A miracle is not a magic trick,” he said. “It’s a gift from God.” Then he showed me a basket he’d made, filled with little scraps of paper in the shapes of fish and loaves of bread. He went on, “Jesus made more fish and more bread and more fish and more bread and there was baskets left over!” I knew the story he referred to, and I praised him for remembering his lesson, but it still hadn’t clicked.
As the day went on, more impossible tasks seemed to fall effortlessly into place, with a few fun surprises along the way. Imagine—time left over for fun! I called my mom to share my good day. She was feeling stressed and couldn’t talk long. “I’d have to be a magician to accomplish all I have to do in the next couple of days.” A magician. It sounded so familiar. All at once, I understood.
We don’t need magic. We need miracles, and our God specializes in them. His provision is not limited to life or death circumstances. The multitudes gathered by the sea that day did not need a cure for cancer. They needed lunch. God came through. Lucky for us, he didn’t stop in biblical times.
Too often we put God in a box, setting our own imaginary boundaries on his power, his love, and his concern for the little details of our lives. Are we not his precious children, whom he loves? Cannot the creator of all things, of time and space themselves, do anything he wishes? Maybe we should come to him then as children, with the candor of our needs, and with childlike faith that expects to receive. As for me, the next time I face an impossibility, I think I know how my prayer might begin.
“Daddy, can you do that fish thing again?”

Lest They Should Boast

2006-03-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

Gideon was a man of God, preparing to lead his people into an ominous battle against the Midianites, a powerful and cruel people who had oppressed the Isrealites for many years. Tiring of this oppression, the Isrealites had called out to God for help, and Gideon, a member of the weakest clan and the least of his family , was the man chosen by God to lead them. As if the odds weren’t bad enough, the LORD said to Gideon,

"You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, 'Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.' " So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained. But the LORD said to Gideon, "There are still too many men. Take them down to
the water, and I will sift them for you there." Judges 7:2,4

When all was said and done, only three hundred men were allowed to go with Gideon to conquer the great land of Midian, whose people were “thick as locusts,” and as numerous as “sand on the seashore.”

How fearful those men must have felt, how terribly inadequate, a mere 300 marching into the great enemy’s camp, armed with nothing but clay pots and trumpets! Little did they know that God had gone ahead of them and sent a vision to an influential Midianite fortelling Midian’s fall to the Isrealites. When Gideon’s little army arrived and blew their trumpets, to their surprise the Midianites fled in fear! At last the Isrealites “got it.” They couldn’t pat themselves on the back for this one, or even praise their leader, Gideon. No, all the praise and glory was due to God, and He alone.

How often in our lives do we prepare for a seemingly impossible task or foreboding event ahead, perhaps feeling inadequate for the challenge, crying out to God to make us strong, when suddenly, just as the day draws near, things go from bad to worse. Maybe we become sick, physically or emotionally—maybe life throws us a curve that leaves us feeling out of control and anything but strong. The odds were stacked against us before, but now we’re weaker than ever. Why do we seem to receive the opposite of the strength we prayed for? Even our Lord himself asked, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” The answer is found in God’s words to Paul, recorded in 2 Corinthians 12: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

We are not all that different from the Isrealites. God must make us weak at times, “in order that we may not boast that our own strength has saved us.” When scenarios like this occur in our lives, we can rest assured that God has gone ahead of us to plan His Victory over our circumstances. And we can be sure that the victory to be won will be indisputably HIS. After all, Gideon’s victory over Midian would not have seemed very miraculous had he done it with his full army of 20,000, and worse, the glory would not have been the Lord’s. Perhaps the resurrection of Christ would not still be changing lives for the glory of God, thousands of years later, had it not been for the depth of his suffering and His frailty in death.

“Therefore,” Paul writes, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9,10.

A Users Guide to Preventing System Overload

2005-11-21T03:32:00.000-08:00

"Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." Psalm 55:21-23 "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:6-8 (NIV)

Anyone who spends any time on a computer nowadays is familiar with the term My Computer. This is a folder where you can go to access your "stuff"-- categorized in many subfolders such as My Pictures, My Documents, and the like. Choose any one of these folders and several options present themselves-- would you like to open this file, move it, copy it, or perhaps delete it? Since there is limited space, only so many folders can be managed before the system becomes overloaded and prone to frequent "crashes."

Our human minds work in much the same way, at least in a spiritual sense. Oh, that we could delete our file marked My Worries. It seems that option does not exist in the present tense, and those items only seem to delete themselves over time as they resolve, if they ever do. Consequently, as this folder grows to overflowing, and its subfolders multiply, we find ourselves bogged down, operating less smoothly, eventually staring into the blue screen of despair. An error has obviously occurred.

Realizing this plight, we Christians have discovered the amazing rewritable CD of Jesus, where we copy our cares daily. The trouble with copying, though, is that the original is still there. No file space has been freed, and we wonder why we are still bogged down. Is it an evil virus? An ill-meaning hacker? Do we need more firewalls? Not likely. No, the answer is far simpler. We've simply been copying when we should have been moving.

To simply copy our list of anxieties over to God's directory is akin to e-mailing a document to a friend and saying "See what you can do with this--meanwhile I'm going to keep working on it." The net effect is zero. Move it though, and its gone forever from your system. It exists in a different place--the place where such hefty files are designed to be stored. For the Lord's hard drive is limitless, and his burden is light.

So tonight when you're clearing your desktop and preparing for shut down, ask yourself "what do you want to do with these files?" Then one by one, name them and move them. Ask Him to help you leave them there. Thank Him for taking them on. Don't go searching for them in the morning. They'll be gone. All you'll find there is PEACE, 0 bytes.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7