Turn toward me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name.  Psalm 119:132

 

One of the most uncomfortable things an insecure woman experiences is the anticipation of walking into a room full of acquaintances and not knowing whether she will be welcomed.  Will they even see her enter to receive her warmly?  Or, will the group turn their backs to her and leave her to figure out how to enter their conversation?  All these dynamics make a woman’s palms sweat.  The fear of it may cause her to stay home altogether.

I don’t know how confident you are in Jesus’ love.  Perhaps you fear that you are at the bottom of His priority list.  You believe that He’d rather be with anyone but you.  Would you consider this scene?

You enter a room full of high profile Christians.  Jesus is there and He is moving among the people in the room, greeting some, holding meaningful conversations with a few at a time.  You wonder if He even knows you arrived but as you begin to move into the crowd, you feel a pair of eyes on you.  He watches you and reads your fears.  He excuses Himself from those with whom He converses and turns in your direction.  He walks over to you and reaches out to graciously embrace you.  You feel His excitement over seeing you.  He senses how important this moment is to you, how much you’ve looked forward to it and, at the same time, how much you dreaded that it might not play out as you dreamed.  He speaks to you in low tones, inviting you to engage Him as intimately as you feel comfortable.  He does not push but the invitation is on the table to read into the many implications of His words and actions.

David asks for grace so many times throughout this Psalm.  His cries and pleas seem like worn out clichés.  But not to David ~ and not to me if I have experienced the dailyness of my trials and a desperate need for God to turn graciously toward me no matter how many times I’ve entered the throneroom.  The only pre-requisite is desire and a love for His name.

Today, His eyes search the crowd, watching for my first inclination of interest.  When I seek Him, He turns and I hold my breath for the wonders of our engagement.

I am never lost in a crowd.  Never.  Your eyes are ever on me and when I am invisible to most everyone else, I am connected to You.  Amen

 

Journal Question: Was the scene described above desirable to you?  If not, figure out why.  Fear, disinterest, unbelief?  The joy of salvation totally depends on a healthy relationship with Jesus.  Are you willing to push through the barriers of discomfort?

Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. Genesis 28:20-21

         Any part of me that has yet to experience God can impair my relationship with God. A wound, a deep fear, my inexperience with Him relationally; all of these can make me skittish to trust Him. Internally, the stakes feel high and I’m not quite sure He’s going to come through for me. The only promises my heart knows I can count on the ones that I’ve already experienced. The others require faith.

         Just so I can learn from Jacob’s story, how was he impaired? He had just had a dream where he saw the heavens opened and angels were coming and going. God spoke to him and introduced Himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac. God never added, “And I am the God of Jacob.” The relationship hadn’t become personal and real yet. Jacob’s heart was nervous, I believe. He might have rehearsed, “Just because God loved my father doesn’t mean He loves me!” Jacob needs to know where he stands with God and so makes this bargain. ‘If you will be with me, preserve me, provide for me, and bring me home again to the family I just injured beyond repair, then I’ll know that you’re my God.’

         I cannot exist on second hand faith either. Coasting on another’s encounter with God doesn’t change my personal life. I tried it for 40+ years. I surrounded myself with iconic men of God. I heard their stories of spiritual conquest. I read biographies of spiritual giants and admired God from afar. Though I knew a lot and had seen a lot (just like Jacob who grew up in the house of a patriarch), God had never been put to the test in my faithless life. I was always the mute in the company of those who gave testimonies.

         God needed to intersect my story at my places of fear and failure. God began to bring crises that would cast me into powerlessness in order to give me the opportunity to put Him to the test. He is a kind Father and does not want me live with impaired faith. Every promise is meant to be mine but it must be tested where I am broken if God is to become real.

Ah, but I have a testimony now. I’m so glad my heart is spilling over. Amen

Journal Question: Are you bored with God? Would you describe your Christian as disappointing, or at the very least, dull? Connect the dots, prayerfully, with today’s devotional.

WHO ARE THE SCORNERS?

The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.  Psalm 119:51

    Who are they?  Is it the unbelievers who openly ridicule, who name call and attempt to shame us for our faith?  Not always.  The most hurtful critics can be brothers and sisters in Christ.  Passionate disciples draw criticism.  Can ‘hot’ and ‘lukewarm’ coexist?  Not easily.  When a child of God is completely consumed with his spiritual journey and little in this world is attractive to him, his decisions about how to spend his time and money will rub across the grain of the casual believer.  The result will be, most likely, snide comments, rolling of the eyes, and the attempt to make God’s disciple second guess himself.  He will weep over the pain of rejection.  He will writhe over the discomfort of not fitting in.   Continue reading “WHO ARE THE SCORNERS?” →

GIVING UP ON MY SURROUNDINGS

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:16-17

         Places can hold bad memories whether it’s a place I used to live, a school I used to attend, or even a playground I was bullied on. The thought of it at this moment might bring distaste to my mouth. Maybe a ‘place’ pops into your mind as you read this as it does mine.

         What’s even more difficult is when my present surroundings are painful. I can’t push memories of it to the back of my mind. Somehow, I must cope to live in it. Though physically present, I can still cause my heart to check out, giving up on anything good coming out of my environment.

         What if I told you that God wants to enter the place of bad memories?  What if you knew, like Jacob, that some common ordinary setting could be a holy place, a house of God and the gateway to heaven? Perhaps you believe, as I did, that God only enters holy places.   Consider Jacob. Fleeing the place of his sin and on a journey to find a wife, he picks a place on the side the road to sleep. All that exists is wilderness and a rock for a pillow. God shows up to mark the spot that will forever be holy to Jacob.

         What limits my experience of God usually has nothing to do with God but everything to do with me. Living in the land of disappointment, I stop hoping, stop asking, and stop looking up. I assume that God would never choose to dwell in such a place. Too much bad has gone down.

         If I knew the power of God and knew how badly He wants me to seek Him in every place I live, play, and work…. then I would be rushing in wide-eyed to see what will happen when He appears. God goes where He is wanted.

         Maybe as you read this, you’re sitting in your painful place. Already today, tears have fallen there, angry words were spoken there, hopeless rhetoric erupted there. This is the beginning of hope, not the end. Seek God. He longs to hear:

“Come, Lord Jesus! Make this your gate of heaven.”

Journal Question:As you think about asking God to come to your place of bad memories, what internal objections try to overrule? Write them down. Look at them. Consider what you would tell a friend who shared these objections with you. Take your own advice.

EVEN WHEN I CANNOT SEE HIM

Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Genesis 28:15-16

         Jacob had a dream and, in it, the Lord spoke to him and confirmed that the covenant promise He had made with his father and grandfather was his as well. How merciful in light of what Jacob and his mother had just done to deceive and trick his father.

         Jacob wakes up and his response is something I have said repeatedly about the past. “Now I see that God was there and I didn’t even know it!” The time I’m usually referring to is when I suffered and felt completely abandoned by God. The terror of being alone caused such despair. Oftentimes, it turned to anger.

         It’s comforting and life changing to realize that God was there all along. Hindsight and God-given intuition prove it with time. Accusations made against Him come back to haunt me. I see that I was faithless and unfair. I end up apologizing to my Father because I can finally see how His Spirit preserved me. I also see how He redeemed a painful experience into something beautiful.

         If you are in a crushing place and it appears that God is not around, it’s not true. Proclaim Jacob’s words out loud. “Surely the Lord is in this place though I do not know it.” If these trials seem to you to be wasted and senseless, it’s not true. You are simply in the middle of the plotline. Redemption has not happened yet. Every pain is for the purpose of redemption. Every single one. It’s a tragedy when we let the pain define us and live as though it’s the end of the story. God is eagerly rubbing His hands together, just waiting for us to seek His healing and redemption. It’s not just something He hands out without it being a cooperative effort.

         Wherever this devotional finds you today, two things are true. 1.) God is with you. And, 2.) God’s promises for a redemptive future are still in tact.

I am often blind to Your presence but I do not possess blind faith. I choose to trust even when I can’t see You. Amen

Journal Question: Over what memory do you still say, “Where were you, God? Did you really leave me alone?” Are you willing to change your belief about that event? How about declaring, by faith, that God was with you. Then ask Him to open your eyes to see evidence of His presence.

ANGEL ACTIVITY

And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!  Genesis 28:12

         Jacob is on his way to find a wife in Paddam Haran while also fleeing the wrath of Esau who might take revenge on the brother who stole his birthright.  On the way, he stops to sleep.  He has a dream.  Earth is connected to heaven by a passageway, a ladder of sorts.  On it, angels are going back and forth between the two worlds.

         What strikes me is that the verse doesn’t say angels came down – and then went up.  It reveals that angels first went up – then came back down.  It reveals that angels dwell among us, seeing to our needs, and they are here by God’s orders.   They go up from our presence and they come back with more direction from God’s throne.

         So much is happening in the supernatural and when I fail to ask for awareness of God’s kingdom, I can miss what God might show me with spiritual eyes.  He is the same God who promised that in the end times, He would give dreams and visions.  (Joel 2:28)  But I often feel alone and believe that I am at the mercy earth, that circumstances and people here rule.  Not true.  Heaven’s purposes are being realized today by God’s army of angels.  He is Lord of the angel armies, after all.

         Angels are around me all the time.  Protecting, singing, bringing messages, soothing, providing.  Upon whose orders are they acting?  The same Jesus who loves me enough to give His life for me.  Now at the right hand of the Father, orders are given to sustain my faith and provide for my needs until I arrive home in heaven one day.  I am not an orphan – left to fend for myself.

         The kingdom realm is meant to be more real to me than the tangible world I can see, taste, and feel.  God connects me to it as He communes with me in my Spirit.  Living in the rich pages of scripture, He unveils the things of the kingdom and opens my eyes to many things that are happening outside of natural vision.  In January of 2007, I prayed, “Lord, open the heavens and show me your glory!”  It was my prayer everyday that year and I will tell you that nothing has been the same since.  Most likely, at this very moment, angels are ascending to the throne on my behalf and then coming back with God’s answer.

I am often consumed by earth and the futility of what happens here.  I want to be consumed by what I can’t see, the stuff of Your world, Jesus.  Amen

Journal Question:  When was the last time you had an experience with the supernatural, God’s kingdom?  Did you see an ‘angel unaware’?  Did you dream?  Did God open your spiritual eyes to something after meditating on scripture?  Revisit that and ask God if there’s something you missed.

PASSIVE OR PROACTIVE?

May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!”  Genesis 28:4

         Isaac’s blessing to Jacob is beautiful and trustworthy.  However, while the spiritual inheritance passed on from Abraham is a sure thing for Jacob, it’s not just handed to him on a silver platter.  A heavenly promise requires proactive participants.  Isaac reveals to his son that he will have to take possession of the land of promise by force.

         How many years have I waited for God to deliver something only to discover that its delivery involved a collaborative effort! All spiritual inheritances must be fought for.  God’s enemy, Satan, is intent on thwarting every purpose of God in my life.  He doesn’t want me to have it.  I can be sure that realizing my destiny will involve a battle.

         Along the way, there are skirmishes when I can rest and know that God is fighting for me but in the larger war, my spiritual life is carved out with prayer, strategy, and endurance.  Figuring out when to wait and when to advance is something only revealed in prayer.  If I don’t know how hear God’s voice, I won’t know which posture to take.

         It is a carnal thing to advance and take things by force whenever I feel that I am stuck.

• Sometimes people are against me.  With God on my side, I believe I can go in to settle the score with some harsh words.
• Sometimes circumstances are against me.  With God on my side, I believe I can manipulate circumstances to work in my favor.

         Both are mistakes. God is the shaper of circumstances and the renovator of people.  My part is to intercede and stand in the promises of scripture.  At some point, God will say ‘move!’  When I do, I will notice that all the red lights have turned green.  Worship will be the result.

Waiting doesn’t mean passivity!  I see that now, Lord.  I direct all my pent up energy to my prayer life.  Amen

Journal Question:  Are you at a point where you’ve declared that ‘something has to change’?  Do you have a plan carved out to make it happen?  Are you willing to set it aside and pray instead?  Write out a prayer to begin a new proactive initiative today.

HOW OTHERS ERODE OUR FAITH

Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and directed him, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women. Arise, go to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel your mother’s father, and take as your wife from there one of the daughters of Laban your mother’s brother.”  Genesis 28:1-2

         Here is an act of sanctification before the word was ever used in scripture.  Isaac is ‘set apart’ by his father and told to protect his spiritual line by declining to marry anyone outside his faith.  He was still fairly young and could not know how easily wrong company could corrupt faith in God.  In his naiveté, Isaac commanded.  Commands protect us when we’re ignorant of consequences.

         I’m not sure I ever fully understand how the company I keep has long-term effects on me, and eventually, everyone close to me.  When I am changed by someone’s influence, for the good and for the bad, it leaks out into all my relationships.   Children, spouses, friends, people I serve in business and ministry, all will feel the good and bad repercussions of my alliances.

         God made humans to interact with each other and, in the course of relationship, affect each other.  This doesn’t happen with inanimate objects.  If I wrapped a knife and fork together in a napkin, put them in a drawer for 10 years and then unwrapped them, they would emerge the same.  Put two people together in the same space for even a year and they will have changed from the influence of the other.

         I consider how easily relationships form.  An act of kindness, a gift given, attention bestowed; these can capture another’s heart.  Someone’s guard is let down.  Oh, how easily Jacob could have fallen for a Canaanite woman.  It might have taken only one soft encounter.  Isaac knew and sent him away from all temptation.

         Life is a series of course corrections.  I draw close to some and pull away from others.  May those I pull near be those who encourage me in my fight for faith.  May I be willing (outside of immediate family) to take a careful step back from any alliance that was made in haste and in foolishness.  The long-term effect on my faith and my descendants depends on both intentional choices.

I consider all your commands in a new light today.  They are out to protect me from what I can not see in the future.  Amen

Journal Question:  Consider one bad relationship from your past or even in your present life.  Ask God to give you wisdom as you trace the steps that led you to trust them.  Make a thorough list of all consequences and see what God teaches you about yourself and your future choices.

HOARDING THE TREASURE

But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:15-16

         When I’m sitting on a discovery of wealth, what do I do?  Do I call and tell everyone I know about my find so that it can be shared?  Or, do I save it all for myself?

         That’s how Israel felt when the love and favor of God went outside their borders.  They felt God’s love was theirs exclusively.  They resented the fact that His grace and mercy knew no boundaries.  Though they had been chosen to be God’s people, they were also commissioned, as far back as the early Old Testament, to be a nation of priests to those outside of Israel.  “But you shall be called the priests of the Lord; they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God.”  Is. 61:6  No wonder Paul reminded the Roman church that he, as a Jew, was a priest to the Gentiles.

         Love like the kind God gives is what my heart has always been seeking.  Can’t I just bask in it and enjoy it without an obligation to make sure others find it too?  Continue reading “Hoarding The Treasure” →

WHEN BELIEVING HURTS

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.  Romans 4:19

Faith doesn’t exist if I can possibly manufacture an answer to my problem.  Faith begins when a situation is absolutely hopeless.  There appears to be no solution.  God says He can heal it, fix it, reform it – yet I can not see how.  At that point, I choose to believe.  But believing hurts because I must invest my heart when it feels like suicide. Continue reading “When Believing Hurts” →