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Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.  Psalm 37:3

Many have prayed for the will of God, followed His voice, and experienced complete disillusionment when they found themselves in hostile surroundings.  They blame God for being unloving or they blame themselves for being poor listeners.  Hostility within the will of God is common and should not surprise God’s children.  (Though I am not speaking of physical hostility where safety at home is threatened.)

Abram, the father of our faith, entered the land of the Canaanites, hostile company epitomized, and settled there.  Though he was the only Yahweh worshipper, He built an altar for everyone to see.  With far less revelation of God than I have, he was strong enough in his faith to stand out and be different from everyone else.

Some years back, our family lived in a hostile environment.  We begged, daily, for release.  We were willing to move anywhere and do anything to escape our surroundings.  Surely, we reasoned, God wouldn’t want for us to endure such a place.  Weren’t we promised blessing?  (We didn’t have a firm theology about the meaning of spiritual prosperity.)  Yet, every request for a move away was met by the silence of God.

One morning in prayer, the Spirit of God spoke to me through today’s verse in Psalms.  “Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”  Psalm 37:3    We had to learn how to make our little home a place where the glory of God rested.  It was necessary for us to understand how to eat the sumptuous spiritual meal God provided daily while in the midst of our enemies.  We stayed three more years before God moved us out and that time proved to be one of the most formational times, spiritually, in our family’s history.

Many live in the midst of hostility.  You might be one of the ‘many’.  Unfortunately, the place of hostility can be with a husband, wife, child, or aging parent.  It can even be in a place of ministry where flesh rules and Spirit-led leadership is lacking.  Scorn and ridicule are the backdrops of your daily life.  Instinct says to escape and to do anything to run from such discomfort.  But God’s way is for His child to learn how to make Him their home.  The glory of Christ can descend on the darkest environment when one lone person is faithful to allow the candle of the Lord to shine through them.  It takes grace and grit – but both both are promised via the wind of God’s Spirit.

Give your children spiritual grit today and the courage to stay in a tormenting place.  Grant them peace in submission.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

The Mighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.  Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.  Psalm 50:1-2

Christ’s death on the cross was for everyone.  The call is universal and it is sounded out to all men and women.  Jesus showed us the way to heaven, revealed that He is the door, and announced that He was the light of the world.  But men have always loved darkness rather than light.  Instead of the light being attractive, we are repelled by it.  Christ is just not desirable to us.  His light is too bright and we shield our eyes from it and turn away.

So, who will believe if all people love darkness?  The ones God specifically calls; the ones whose eyes are opened to see His glory.  Ah, this call is personal.  This call came to us by name.

Whenever God speaks a word, it is effective.

• God spoke a Word and this dead planet began to pulsate with life.  What once looked like Mars began to grow green.
• God spoke a Word to a dead man, a decaying man, wrapped up like a mummy, and this man came to life.  His body regenerated.  “Lazarus, come forth!” was the call.  God’s Word produced life out of death.
• God spoke a Word, called my name, and I was awakened out of spiritual death.  The call prompted me to turn and look into the face of Christ.  I understood His message of salvation and believed.  If He hadn’t spoken to me and opened my eyes, I would have continued on my death march.

Nobody knows whom God will call.  Because of that, my heart reaches out to God in prayer for those who haven’t yet heard their name spoken by God.  Now, Christ is still unattractive to them, even repulsive. Once God calls their name, they will never be the same.

The call is powerful like dynamite.  It transformed a brutal murderer into a zealot.  The Damascus road was the place it happened.  Paul was the man.   I know this transformation, too.  Don’t you?  The longer I live near Jesus and soak in His Words, the more I cease to know the old me.  You’ll never know how many times I read old journals and respond out loud, “What was your problem, Christine?” 

The call is to a new life.  Don’t walk!  Run to Calvary if you are hearing your name whispered in your soul.

Oh, still speak.  I love how You speak to me.  I love the results of Your touch on my life.  Amen

SaveSave

I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help.  Psalm 131:22

A big blowup in a relationship is not what usually kills it. People argue. Some fight passionately. But if both are committed to the each other and also committed to truth, there is understanding and restoration. What is deadly to any relationship, however, is a gradual deadening of the heart. A slow death is much more difficult to turn around.

You’ve heard the phrase, “I feel like I don’t know you anymore.” A ‘foreigner’ is a good description. It is saying, ‘You are acting so strangely that I don’t even recognize you. You may as well have come from a foreign land.’

 Amazing that what can be intimate can grow so deeply estranged. In a spiritual sense, this is what happens, more than not, to the children of God toward their Heavenly Father. No wonder there are so many songs about returning to your first love, about stirring the cold embers of your heart. Erosion can happen so slowly that the gradual decline is inconspicuous.

To make sure that it doesn’t happen to me, I want to think about this more intently this morning. What would happen that might show I’ve turned my face away from God to tiptoe in the other direction?

• I fail to take the sins of my heart seriously.
• I keep the reading of the Word technically and intellectually.
• I lose the lump in my throat when I talk about Jesus.
• The mercy He showed to me becomes a casual thought.
• God’s wooing is easily ignored.
• I play it safe to live in unbelief instead of by faith.

 I used to believe that some ‘thing’ would happen that would kill my faith. I guess I was wrong. Nothing can do that for me. Isaiah says that God’s children have turned themselves back into foreigners. Circumstances don’t make or break a relationship. It’s whether two people choose to walk together or not. It’s commitment. It’s nurturing the love that exists and never allowing any other priority to eclipse it.

Oh, that I might always say that we are intimate. Amen

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.  Psalm 20:7

David compels the people of God to turn away from counterfeit powers.  Horses and chariots were plentiful both inside the kingdom and outside.  Kingdoms of the east were also very wealthy and gold and silver abounded. Satan often rewarded idolatry with temporary abundance but David was adamant that true power begins and ends with God.

Most people are drawn to the light. That’s the good news. But there are two kinds of light and one is fake. That’s the bad news. Satan masquerades himself as a god of light because he knows that if he shows us his true identity, we will be seized with fear. He must disguise himself into whatever he knows will appeal to his victims.

This is why I often encourage true believers to address this problem in prayer when praying for their families. They can restrict the enemy, with the spiritual authority they have in Christ, from putting on a demonic glitter that makes his way addicting. Oh, the stories associated with this kind of praying! Sons have, all of a sudden, seen a girlfriend for who she is and broken up with her. Middle school children have, all of a sudden, seen the true nature of their ‘bad’ friends, and walked away from danger. A husband has, all of a sudden, seen the kind of woman he’s having an affair with and ended it. Once the demonic glitter was removed, loved ones stepped back, gasped, and came to their senses. None of us need be under the spell of false light.

Continue reading “Demonic Glitter” →

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me? Psalm 56:3 

How long can you keep going under pressure before giving up? How many losses would you sustain before you find that a particular one seems too much to bear? The threshold of abdication is different for each of us. So, also, is the particular issue that defeats us. I’ve known parents who lost one child to cancer and they never recovered. They live in a perpetual suspension of emotions and they are internally numb.

But, I also know a woman who lost one child in childbirth; another in a custody battle. She lived childless. Both of her parents died when she was young and she was raised by surrogate parents who severely mistreated her. Though she visited the valley of hopelessness many times and flirted with total despair, she leaned on God for the grace and grit to get up. Now in her later years, she is a wise old soul who gives the gifts of compassion, advocacy, and wisdom to those who have no one to understand their pain. Her eyes search for those lost in themselves. She’s able to look deeply into their eyes, see their soul and call them out.

Continue reading “When There’s One Loss Too Many” →

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?

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.

Continue reading “How Authentic Am I?” →

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.

Continue reading “Why Has God Shown Me This?” →

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.

Continue reading “Skillful In Spiritual Intuition” →

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.

Continue reading “Get a Spiritual Grip!” →