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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!” →

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.

Continue reading “Does My Trust in God Preach a Sermon?” →

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

         Continue reading “We Also Live In The ‘Not Yet’” →

Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.  Psalm 40:11

Faithlessness invites me to give up on God.  Now, I know the verse, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” James 5:16   I learned it as a kid but learning the words and understand the meaning can be many decades removed.

There are situations that can appear absolutely hopeless. Evidence wants to prove that nothing changes because of my faith. Sometimes, things get worse. The pain of watching everything regress nearly shuts me down. The fatigue that accompanies long-term stress wears on me and causes me to look ten years older than I am. Numbness beckons to me like a drug and promises me rest. The thought of my heart sliding into hopeless oblivion is attractive. I just want the striving to cease.

Is this where you are today? You’ve been wrestling with God for a long time over one single thing. The more you pray, the more things seem to decline. To continue to keep your heart alive to hope and faith appears futile. You’re fast approaching the line where quitting pretends to be the smart thing to do. Dreaming is painful. God appears to be cruel as He withholds the blessing you seek.

This is what it is to live in the shadows. And I have. But let me testify that I have seen powerful prayers answered within the course of a week.  The deliverance was glorious and there was no way I could have predicted its arrival. The ticking of heaven’s clock was indiscernible.  While I waited, there were moments in the journey that I collapsed into faithlessness. It was a lonely place and I didn’t stay there long.  Only prevailing in prayer brought the blessing and I’d like to believe that I have greater stamina in future spiritual battles because I’ve learned not to give up.

Over what issue have you taken hold of God in prayer today? How long have you labored? Hang on. Dig your fingers into the fabric of his robe and don’t let go. Today could be the day He speaks a word and prison bars open wide.

I am willing to prevail in prayer but can’t sustain it without Your grace.  In Jesus name,  Amen