Category: Daily Devotionals

Stuck Halfway

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.  Psalm 119:15

The way of the disciple is to listen, meditate on what he’s heard, then travel the ways of His teacher.  David doesn’t just meditate to enjoy kingdom musings.  He narrows his eyes to consider God’s ways and to make sure he follows them.

My ears perk up whenever I hear someone describe a principle from the Word as “interesting”.  If it’s only said now and then, it’s not alarming.  But, if ‘interesting’ is habitually the way God’s Word is described, then it’s as if the kingdom is nothing more than an indulgence of the intellect.  They are fattened by the entertainment factor and are self-satisfied because they understand certain concepts.  However, they seem to ignore their weaknesses and believe God for personal transformation.  Their Christianity stays in their head while their heart remains broken and full of self.

What’s critical for me to realize is this ~ If I boast of understanding something void of application, I don’t know the thing at all.  I can know and preach quite passionately that Jesus died for my sins, even watch others come to the altar, but still wallow in past personal failures.  Tragically, I have not personally experienced the freedom of having my sins forgiven.

For every word of Jesus that captures my heart, the invitation to allow my heart to be changed by that very word ~ follows.

I love to study and am tempted to be self-impressed because I did.  You’re not impressed, Lord.  What pleases You is whether or not Your Word travels to my heart and changes me. Don’t let me miss the most important part.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

What If I Have An Aversion?

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I have inclined my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.  Psalm 119:112

    Tell a child, “Don’t do that!” and they’ll set out to do it.  Tell a child “Do this!” and they’ll want to do anything but that.  Being told what to do is distasteful.  Rebellion is bound up in the heart of every newborn.  If not conquered, rebellion will remain a spiritual disease for the breadth of their lifetime.  Though they are God’s child, they will strain under His commandments.  They will obey from time to time, but down deep, they will resent being told what to do.

closed-eyes    David is tough on himself.  He knows that without some hard work in prayer, his heart will not be engaged to obey with gladness.  David announces to God that he has dealt with his heart’s desire to be autonomous.  He has done whatever it takes to bend his heart toward loving God’s ways.

    Are there any ways in me that are still childish?  Do I obey God only when I feel like it?  Do I obey only the things which don’t require sacrifice?  If so, I am no better than a pouting three year old.  To grow up, I enter into the conflict of my flesh and my spirit.  I recognize and own that my flesh wants one thing; my spirit quite another.  I take my own flesh to God in prayer and admit that it’s bent in the wrong direction.  I cry out for mercy, for a heart change.  I don’t want to grind out a life of obedience that is rooted in behavior modification; all the while my heart privately dreams of doing my own thing.  I will resent God and truly believe He is the one keeping me from joy.

    When I teach, I often face a church full of sullen faces.  They are ‘technically’ in the kingdom but their hearts have not discovered that Jesus is their treasure and that His burden is light.  Heart reformation has never been taught.  Doing the Christian thing has been the focus of their environment.  Satan keeps them in chains, a bondage built on the lie that they know best and God is One who steals their joy by asking them to live in a prison of rules.  They have no idea that the way of the disciple is freedom and exhilaration.  They do not know that the presumed ‘prison of rules’ is the tomb and obedience is walking out into the spacious place of the resurrection.

If my heart is not inclined toward you and what you ask of me, change me.  Amen

A Father I Can’t Remember

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Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him!  Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity.  PSALM 68:4-6

God wants me to know something about the nature of His love.  I had a loving, attentive father in the first days of my development.  Though my memory may be fuzzy and my recollection of Him absent, if I could go back in time and roll the video tape in the spiritual realms, I would see how active God was.  I would see how He preserved me.

Oh, the heartbreak of a Father who has loved well, how deep the pain of a tender parent who has invested Himself yet I did not acknowledge Him for a long time.  Instead, though I knew Him to be Father, I ignored Him while playing with toy gods.   The pain He must have felt went beyond a mild sting.  It was a blow to His heart.

Have you ever poured out your soul on another only to have your love spurned?

  • Perhaps you’ve done it as a parent.  You’ve sacrificed to give when there was little left for yourself.  The one who drank of your affection didn’t know that you expended the last drop in your well of resources.  They tossed your gift aside with disgust.  God knows.
  • Perhaps you’ve done it as a friend.  You watched the promise of friendship unfold like a beautiful flower.  You took it slowly and prayerfully.  Yet, with all your caution, in time the friendship eroded and your heart was tossed aside like a worthless thing.  God knows.
  • Perhaps you’ve done it as a spouse.  You dreamed the dream of intimacy.  You modeled what ‘oneness’ would look like from the way you invested your trust.  While you walked through the years with integrity, his heart grew cold and for a while He hid it well.  One day, there was a pronouncement that the love was gone.  God knows.

God knows!  When our love is tossed aside, the wounds often run so deep that we withdraw and stop extending our heart.  God does not.  He keeps hoping, keeps the ache alive for the purpose of future reconciliation.  Have you ever known such a faithful love as this?   And may I not miss the bigger message in all of this ~ that when I was indifferent, He was not.  When I was faithless, He was not.  When I accused Him of being absent, He was not.

You have loved me with an everlasting love, past, present, and future.  Whatever trust issues I had should be healed in the truth of our history.  Thank you.  In Jesus name, Amen

How Authentic Am I?

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HOW AUTHENTIC AM I?

How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!  Psalm 32:2

Genuine.  Sincere.  These should be the last words I see on a 3×5 card before getting out of my car and going out in public.  The world is often a stage and ‘nice’ is the mask I wear as a Christian.  Do others experience me as sincere?

Sincere is based on Latin words meaning ‘without wax’.  There was an ancient practice of using wax to hide cracks in inferior pottery so that it could be disguised as more valuable and sold for a higher price.  A high-end piece of pottery had a stamp on it that said, “Without wax” to show that it had not been doctored.  As a person, I want to be sincere, not just hiding my true nature and true feelings.

Silhouette of young woman.

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What Will Erase My Sense Of Inadequacy?

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Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.  Psalm 119:98-99

As far as I know, we’re not told that David struggled with crippling inadequacy.  I know of no admissions that revealed that he did.  However, his acknowledgement in today’s scripture would make me wonder if this was a lightening bolt revelation for David.  Perhaps he wondered where his wisdom came from as he confronted the lack of understanding in his enemies, in his teachers, and even in the heart of King Saul.  As He came to grips with their limitations, and as he simultaneously took stock of his own grasp of spiritual knowledge, he could only make one conclusion.  God had been his teacher.  There was no other explanation.  He didn’t attend a prestigious school.  He didn’t come from wealth and nobility.  He spent his youth alone, looking after sheep in a wilderness. When God reveals someone’s calling, there is most always panic.  The call is far bigger than one’s capacity to fulfill it.  “I can’t do this.  I don’t know enough!”

Depression, Women, Sadness.
Depression, Women, Sadness.

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Why Has God Shown Me This?

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen2 Comments

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.  Psalm 25:5

If I ask someone for direction, it’s because I’m going somewhere.  I’m not asking for information so I can sit and ponder it.  God’s revelations of truth lead to obedient action.

God never gives divine insight just for mere intrigue. He discloses His thoughts to someone who is then responsible to find out why they were given such information. Are they to pray? Are they to step forward with information? Are they to expose? Are they to encourage? Are they to go?  Seeing is proactive.

Obedience

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Skillful In Spiritual Intuition

Published on by Christine Wyrtzen1 Comment

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Psalm 34:11

God’s child is meant to be spiritually intuitive. Though God is a communicator, He is often subtle. If I’m dull instead of intuitive, I will miss the signposts that are significant to my journey.  Just as Jesus spoke in veiled language, often in parables, He still has a specific way of speaking to each of His children.  An unbeliever will never discern the message nor understand its contents.  Spiritual intuition is a skill and is nothing I can set out to develop on my own.  It is given to me by way of grace.  I consider my spiritual ancestors and what they might have perceived prior to life-changing events.

  • Joseph prepared a feast for his brothers. When they arrived, they were seated in order of their birth. Who was the first to notice? We’re not told. But eventually, all of them were stunned and speechless. They knew the moment was pregnant with implications.
  • David’s life was forever altered the moment he set out to deliver a meal to his brothers on the battlefield.  Did he have a sense that morning that he would face the greatest challenge of his young life thus far?  As he approached the tents of Saul’s army and heard the rumblings of fear about Goliath, when did he know in the pit of his stomach that stepping forward to fight was his destiny?

My greatest mentor in spiritual intuition is Jesus.  He was prayerfully discerning throughout the Gospels.  Under girding all of his ‘seemingly’ spontaneous decisions was time spent with His Father.  Every moment of solitude fueled righteous decision making.  He knew when to heal, what to preach, who to trust, what was coming next, who was putting on a show, and who was sincere.  He never misdiagnosed a spiritually pregnant juncture.

There are crossroads that will cause me to draw in my breath. Everything will feel like it’s shifting. The moments seem fragile, even tenuous.  Am I prepared for it?  Am I ordering my time in a way that will foster spiritual intuition?  I know that I dare not mess it up. If ever there is a time for me to stay quiet and watchful, it is this moment.  Pondering will take precedence in my priorities.

Woman Edge of Forever

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Get a Spiritual Grip!

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But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.  Psalm 131:2

When a mother weans her child, she has to deny him what he wants and then comfort him when he can’t have it. She weans him because it is necessary for his growth into a new phase of life. She appears cruel to the child but nonetheless, he has no one to turn to but her for consolation. She loves him so she persists in the training yet she also mourns over the pain she causes him.

So it is with God. When things don’t feel right, when my heart is churning, when I’m tired of waiting, when I don’t have what I believe I need, when my long standing wound doesn’t appear to be any less severe, when I’m sick of myself, when I want what I want, then it takes great grace to dig deeply and will my soul to be quiet. It takes even more grace to run to the One who could fix everything that plagues me in an instant but doesn’t. I could be tormented about why He restrains Himself, why He withholds, yet I need Him to comfort me as I wrestle with ability to trust Him. Satan would tell me that I trust in vain. The counterfeit comfort he offers appeals and so the battle rages on.

Hope in Prayer

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Does My Trust in God Preach a Sermon?

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Trust in the Lord.  Have faith; do not despair. Trust in the Lord.    Psalm 27:14

I used to believe that a sermon was only delivered by a speaker; one who uses words.  Apparently, sermons are not limited to that.  Anyone becomes a preacher when people watch them extend their faith toward a situation, using the Word of God as they go.  Faith in Christ is what separates the believer from the unbeliever.

Confident Prayer

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We Also Live In The ‘Not Yet’

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God is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. Psalm 144:2

         In WWII, Japan surrendered to American forces and yet the news of the surrender took weeks and months to reach isolated Japanese garrisons. Soldiers continued to fight. Men continued to die. Those who were ignorant of Japan’s surrender were caught in the ‘not yet’.

         I have often been confused by the promises of God. He is my healer. Does that mean that I will never know a sick period? He is my deliverer. Does that mean that I will never know a season of oppression? He is the God who avenges. Does that mean that He will settle all scores on the heels of wrongdoing? He is my strength. Does that mean that I will never languish in seasons of weakness? He is my shield. Does that mean that I will never be wounded by fiery arrows? He is my comfort. Does that mean that I will never feel alone or forsaken?

         Now, I can know the right answers to all of those questions but I can get tripped up when I’m in a prolonged ‘not yet’ period.

         Solomon said it another way in his well-known discourse. “There is an appointed time for everything. A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up.” Ecclesiastes 3

Blessed and Cursed Tree

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