The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.  Psalm 16:6

Have you ever been denied what is rightfully yours?  Perhaps inheritance issues have divided your family and humanly speaking, you came out on the short end.  The pain of broken promises can turn the nicest hearts into bitter ones.  Twisted old men and women were once young dreamers.  Hurt upon hurt chipped away at their trust and their optimism and the face of cynicism was slowly revealed with the years.  With nothing and no one to count on, they threw up their hands and resigned themselves to get nothing.  They tested everyone in their life; “they love me…”, “they love me not….”  Those who had a relationship with them felt the pressures of the relationship and got weary of jumping through hoops to prove their love.

Continue reading “Who Can You Count On?” →

Let your steadfast come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your Word.  Psalm 119:41-42

If the promises of God are coming true in my life in the form of answered prayers, then I do have a plan when others taunt me.  Constant harassment will be crippling unless the arrows that come flying in my direction bounce off the confidence I enjoy from answered prayer.  When the heavens are open and God is blessing me, I can sustain the attacks and stand tall.  Oh, but when the heavens are silent and fellowship with God is broken, I lose all gut strength.

Continue reading “Seasons of Taunting” →

Hear me, LORD, my plea is just; listen to my cry. Hear my prayer– it does not rise from deceitful lips.  Psalm 17:1

Prayer can be confusing.  I know that I’m asking for good things.  Even noble things.  I assume that these will be the kind God loves to answer quickly and with a ‘yes’. Then, there’s nothing.  The heavens appear to be shut.  These are the mysteries of prayer that are the hardest for God’s children to understand.  If my prayers are God-honoring, why wouldn’t God love to say ‘yes’?

Continue reading “When Prayer Doesn’t Bring Me The Relief I Seek” →

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.

    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

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!”

Continue reading “What Will Erase My Sense Of Inadequacy?” →