Let It Flow

"The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5)

As I read this verse this morning, I was convicted. The LORD God has shown me so great a love that He would pour forth His perfect, faithful, sacrificial love into my heart by the Holy Spirit. And as His love flows into me for my good, it should also flow out of me for His glory and the benefit of others. Yet so often I create a dam preventing His love from freely flowing out of me. This dam ultimately is about me - my sin. I withhold displaying the glory of God and His love by my selfishness, my self-focus, my own gain ... ME, ME, ME! What a tragedy!!

Part of our suffering in this world is dealing with our own sin. Lately, the LORD has taken me on a journey of facing my particular sins. It has disgusted me, knocked me down, and really broken me. Even in the midst of this valley, my Savior has guided me along a path with quiet streams and lush green meadows, for in crucifying my flesh, He is leading me in paths of righteousness. As you might imagine, there is a tension of great beauty and utter disgust in this journey.

Looking at this particular passage in Romans 5, we see that for those who have been justified by faith, God bestows not only complete forgiveness of our sins, but additional blessings of peace with Him (5:1), grace from Him (5:2), and hope through Him (5:2, 4). Paul reminds us then that we can rejoice in our sufferings because we will not be defeated by this path of pain, but we will be strengthened by it (5:3-5). So, brothers and sisters in Christ, let the love of God, poured into our hearts by the beautiful gift of His Spirit, flow freely into and out of us - for the glory of Christ alone! AMEN and AMEN!

Soul Serenity

Anxiety has permeated our culture. According to the National Institute of Mental Illness, "anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults ..." An anxiety disorder would be classified as excessive anxiety. And then there is an entire other category of plain old worry. We all have it, right? Think about it - right here, right now - what are you worried about?

As I picked up my Bible this morning, I was reminded that the opposite of worry is trust. Trust need not be complicated. Sometimes it's just crying out to God when you are at the end of what you can handle. Or it might be a simple prayer of surrender at the start of your day. In Psalm 131, David shares his heart with the LORD, and we are privy to listen in:

LORD, my heart is not haughty, 

     Nor my eyes lofty.

     Neither do I concern myself with great matters,

     Nor with things too profound for me. 

     Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,

     Like a weaned child with his mother;

     Like a weaned child is my soul within me.

     O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forever. 

David first speaks of his humility before the LORD. He approaches the LORD after examining his life. He is contrite in his heart, in his eyes, and in his actions. He knows that concerning himself with matters beyond him will cause anxiety to burst forth. So in trusting the LORD with these things, he chooses to have the peace of a calmed and quieted soul. His hope is in the LORD, and he charges his spiritual family, the people of Israel, to do the same - trust in the LORD alone forever. 

So what is weighing on your heart this morning? What are your thoughts and cares fixed upon? I've not walked in your shoes, and you haven't walked in mine, so let's not claim to understand what each other is going through. But I can encourage you to take your heavy load to the cross and surrender the burden of carrying it. I can tell you that trusting the LORD with it will bring you great comfort in the depths of your soul - a peace that you and I can never understand. It's not a one-time thing. No, surrender is constant. And so is the peace that will accompany it. May the LORD give you the grace to trust Him. 

"It Isn't Right!"

"It isn't right!" I declared to my husband last night. "It just isn't right!" I had just received news that a friend of mine from college who has been battling leukemia for several months was getting seriously worse. From my viewpoint, I was dwelling on the fact that it wasn't right because she was making a difference in the world. Having adopted two children who are still relatively young, she, in my mind, is needed to raise them, provide for them, and nurture them to be sent out into the world one day. And although I have been out of touch with her in recent years, I know that this friend, as a believer in CHRIST, is doing other things to impact the world.

But what was at the heart of my cry of injustice was that it truly isn't right. And it stems from the day that Adam and Eve disobeyed the LORD's mandate to not partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From that day forward, pain and suffering, through sin, entered our world. And it will not be right until the LORD returns. John, the author of Revelation, saw a vision for what it will be like in the end - when all of the pain and suffering is gone forever.

"Then I [John] saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away' " (21:1-4). 

I long for this as I see friends like this one - or family, or friends of friends - physically suffer so greatly. I long for the LORD to return when I hear of injustice being done in the world. And I long for JESUS to make things right when I look at my own life, my own sin, my own willingness to partake of what the LORD demanded me not to touch. Come, LORD JESUS, come!

I've Got This!

You never really know what to expect when your feet hit the floor every morning. My morning started at 4 am, heading to the YMCA to teach back-to-back spin classes. It wore me out, but that's good because it reveals to me that I've had a good workout. Had a shower, hit the grocery store, drank a protein shake, and was home by 7:30. All was well. Then I walked in the door. Little Miss Toddler was fussy, fussy, fussy - inconsolable really. Nothing calmed her down. "Okay ... I can handle this!" Our 7-year old chimed in with a little tantrum of her own. It actually made me laugh a little - it CAN get comical. "No problem - I've got this!" Made the hungry crew some breakfast and had just dished out a nice, big bowl for the littlest. Placed it on the table on a placemat, forgetting that the wee one was now climbing chairs and pulling things off the table. Off went the placemat AND the big bowl filled with breakfast - splat, all over the floor with yet another broken dish from our dwindling collection. Deep breath. And then the realization hit: I DON'T have this and I CAN'T handle this! Done in by 8:30 ... ugh!

You know, "done in" is a great place to be. That's right where God wants us. He wants us to see our complete need for Him. And then He wants to empower us with HIS strength to do what it is that HE has called us to.

When Jesus called the first disciples, we read in Matthew 4:19 that he said to Simon and Andrew who were busy with their profession of catching fish, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." What we often forget is that Jesus didn't call us to follow Him and then require us to take care of His business on our own strength. Read it again - "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."

So whatever God has called us to do today, He will make us what we need to be. Our task is to follow Him. Bask in His Word and meditate. Lift your heart and mind to Him in prayer. Remember who He is and worship Him. Follow Him - He will lead you through your day. Simple and profound, yet so challenging. Praise the LORD!

After Two Whole Years

This morning I was reading in Genesis 39-41. This is the story of Joseph with Potiphar's wife, his imprisonment, and his dream interpreting. I was struck in reading the first verse in chapter 41, that God's timetable is not ours. Even concerning the godly, which clearly Joseph was - even when one's heart's desire is to please the Lord - God's timing is not always what we would hope and pray for. And it wasn't the case for Joseph. The time between Joseph's interpretation of the cupbearer's dream with his restoration to his position and when Pharaoh was in need of an interpretation for his dream was two whole years. As I sat here pondering that, I was led to wonder why. Why two whole years? Why would Joseph have to continue to sit in that prison for two additional years and wait? I don't know the answer to that, and clearly it's not important or the text would have made it clear as to why. The important things to know are these: 1) God always has a plan for our lives. 2) There are always times in our lives when we must wait on God for His plan to unfold. 3) God always has the best for us. Even if that means sitting in prison for years, whatever your prison is, He has an ultimate plan for your life. His plan wasn't to harm Joseph, but to give him a future and a hope. And sometimes, behind the scenes, other things are unfolding that we are completely unaware of. What a blessing it is to trust in the Lord for all of this - hard as it may be at times since we're programmed by our culture to get what we want now. Jehovah Jireh, our Provider - all we need is found in Him. Praise the Lord!