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But somewhere it is testified in these words: “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him? Hebrews 2:5-6

A little boy attempted to recite the Lord’s prayer.  He said, “Our Father, who art in heaven, how do you know my name?”  That child had no idea he was capturing the wonder of these verses.  He misquoted the prayer but correctly summarized this direct quotation from Psalm 8.  On a distant hillside, a shepherd boy gazed into the heavens and was awestruck by the privilege of being thought of by God.  All David had to go on were the stories of his ancestors, truths about God from the Torah, and the experience of being part of a nation God called ‘Israel, my glory.’

In 1968, when Apollo 8 circled the moon, the astronauts took turns reading the story of creation.  You might have heard them recite it on archived recordings.  What’s more meaningful than that is when Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and celebrated communion.  As he did, he read this verse from Psalm 8.  “What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You care for him?”  It was under radio silence so no one got to hear it.

What does it mean that God is thinking of me today?  Am I a fleeting thought?  Is it like when I run into an old friend and hear them say, “It’s really strange that I would see you today.  Last week, out of the clear blue, I thought of you.”  While that’s slightly meaningful, it’s not life changing.  It’s clear that I was just someone’s stray thought whereas God is preoccupied with me.  With the billions of people on earth, He doesn’t divide His time to think about me for just a split second before moving on to someone else.  He is ever conscious of my every breath, every sigh, every joy, frustration, tears and celebrations.  He is intimately acquainted and eternally committed in Covenant love that He initiated.

On this day, right now, how are you feeling?  Alone, challenged, intimidated, forsaken, perhaps even betrayed?  Savor every word of this love letter.  If it’s familiar, don’t read it on auto pilot.  Take your time.  It’s one of many expressions of love but a perfect one for this moment in time.  Allow the wonder of what it means to belong to God infuse new iron into your foundation.

But now the Lord who created you, says: Don’t be afraid, for I have ransomed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up—the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, your Savior, the Holy One of Israel. Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.

Isaiah 43

I am concealed in the shadow of God’s hand.  Isaiah 49:2

The definition of a shadow is an image cast by an object.  The word doesn’t usually bring warm feelings.  Someone hiding in the shadows is a person with a questionable agenda.  Someone afraid of their own shadow is a poor soul gripped by shyness.  Someone who sees shadows in the night is one who sleeps lightly.  And we know the familiar phrase in the 23^rd Psalm, ‘in the valley of the shadow of death.’ 

While the topic of shadows makes us think of something foreboding, shadows can also be beautiful.  How about these references.

I dwell in the shadow of the Almighty.  Psalm 91:1

I am concealed in the shadow of God’s hand.  Isaiah 49:2

And, I take refuge in the shadow of my Father’s wings.  Psalm 36:7 

God is also described as One who casts a shadow, and His shadow provides shade from the heat.  Isaiah 25:4  His presence shadows His children ~ going with them wherever they go. Psalm 121:5

If I am in Christ, I am overshadowed when the Spirit conceives something holy, or heals something broken, or prepares something yet unformed.  In these days of our family’s sorrow, we are overshadowed.  We are being refined in the fire, healed in our brokenness, and watching for redemption still unformed.

For each of us who are overshadowed by Your Spirit, we rest while You create.  Amen

Behind enmity of any kind, there’s always something bigger going on; something sinister in the spirit world that exacerbates seeds of discord. Satan loves division among people groups. He favors anything that God hates. God calls His children to unity; Satan calls his children to discord. God calls His children to love one another; Satan calls his children to kill and destroy. Whenever prejudice is not dealt with, it intensifies with each generation. Sin is never dormant. Left to itself, it will grow, giving Satan an opportunity to get even more mileage out of hatred.

Racism and prejudice are rampant and on full display.  Whites against blacks. Arabs against Jews. The North against the South. Old money against new money. The rich against the poor. But God would want me to personalize this even further. We are often born into homes with family prejudices. I was. There were feelings of animosity against a certain relative who, sadly, couldn’t do anything right to lessen the feelings of hatred. There was a prejudice against a neighbor who had acted foolishly years back. Their name couldn’t even be mentioned without the re-telling of their story of shame. It’s possible for us to hear family stories around the dinner table and feel a dislike for someone without a personal reason of our own. It’s in the blood, just as it was for Haman.

God is a God of reconciliation. Whenever prejudice can stop with us, let’s make this our holy ambition. Seeds of righteousness will be passed on to our children. A war, local or even international, might just be prevented if generational biases were healed at the foot of the cross.

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Genesis 29:20

This is one of the rare moments in the Bible where sentiments about romantic love are expressed. Does love at first sight exist? Yes. Is there such a thing as people just ‘clicking’ when they meet? I believe so. It happens in friendship. Why not romantic love!

Jacob so loved Rachel that working for seven years to acquire her as his wife was hardly a sacrifice. If we were to ask Jacob about it in today’s vernacular, he might reply, “It was nothing!” And we know what he means. When I love to do something, the time that expires as I engage in the activity is irrelevant. Hours go by as if they were minutes. This is how I feel as I do many things; record in the studio, engage in the graphic design of new marketing materials, organize drawers and closets, even explore colors, textures, and fabrics.

There are people that I love deeply and serving them also seems effortless. I wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing in some way for them. I love to see them happy no matter what it costs me.

What is Jesus asking you to do today that seems steep? There is a cost. He said there would be. It is cross-shaped. Paul said that it was love that constrained him to endure hardship. It is lack of love that causes many to abandon their faith. When things get difficult, there is no relationship to sustain them. Knowledge of God without experience does not build emotional and physical endurance in Christian service.

There are days each of us lose perspective. They are related to the moments Jesus spent in the garden asking His Father if He might be spared the cross. But one day, no matter what we’ve suffered, I believe we will all say something similar. “I loved Him so it was easy to spend my life.”

Internal pep talks fizzle out quickly, Lord. It is Your voice and the memories of our time together that give me supernatural strength. Amen

 

“What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” Mark 4:30-32

I believe and I have seen with my own eyes ~ my own transformation. Amen

By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.  Hebrews 11:27

What happened in Moses’ invisible world took him far.  He left his adopted family, forfeited his place in the line of royalty, and then took on the responsibility for leading over 603,000 children of Israel out of Egypt and across the desert to their new homeland.  He endured stresses most of us will never feel, suffered the love/hate relationship with a fickle people who worshipped God one day and Baal the next, and he did all this while enduring the many griefs of his own personal story.  What carried him through it all and gave him the strength to endure?  Connection with the One who was invisible.

What happens in the unseen realm, in the life of every child of God, cannot be underestimated.  It’s what propels us into the line of fire, some even into martyrdom.  It gives iron to the weak.  A revelation of God, through Christ and through His Word, shapes things not visible to the naked eye.  Right now, as you are reading this, the Holy Spirit is working in your own invisible realm to guide your thoughts, personalize this scripture, and lead you to be different five minutes from now than you are now.

As you and I interact with God and His Word today, here are just a few of things that will happen that are imperceptible to others.  God will reveal Himself and enlarge our view of Him.  God will disclose things to our minds, and hearts, that will bring inner change.  God will give me a word to speak that will plant heaven’s seeds on earth’s soil.  (It will prosper because His Word trumps all other forces at work.)  God will re-direct me when I am starting to wander off into wrong lines of thinking and feeling. God will revive me through a whisper when I sink under the pressures I can’t yet anticipate.  God will reward my obedience with peace and confidence.  All of this is invisible.

Scripture speaks of God’s child residing in peace and safety.  Does God keep His promise when I look into my external circumstances and see turmoil and danger?    Let us not doubt.  Peace and safety are the bedfellows of any of us who keep our eyes on the invisible God.  Like Moses, we  are constantly changing in the presence of the Almighty.  We endure.  We do not fear.  We rise out of the ashes.  We think soundly.  We speak wisdom in the presence of the foolish.  And like Peter and John, we stand before others and give testimony in such a way that others perceive we have been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Let these scriptures be our benediction.

 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and in the presence of Christ Jesus, who made the good confession before Pontius Pilate, to keep all His precepts without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He alone possesses immortality and lives in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal power and dominion! Amen.  I Timothy 6:13-16 AMP

He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8:44

My storytellers can be people around me but I can also be one as I process things with or without God.  Satan is also a storyteller and I will be lied to.  His default language is lies.  A default language is what someone speaks instinctively. Satan lives and breathes falsehood.  In our justice system, someone is considered innocent until proven guilty.  But with the devil, I better realize that he is always guilty. The paradigm is flipped.

If he’s whispering his version of my own story in my ears, how will I know it?  He will say anything that puts me in bondage.  The most important thing on his agenda is to corrupt my trust in God.  The lies usually start with that goal in mind.  “See, your faith is in vain. God can’t be trusted. You’re foolish to believe His promises.  They’re not for you.”  On it goes.  If trust is breached, my relationship is fractured to the point where I am left completely vulnerable.  If I shut my ears to God, they’re wide open for someone else to fill them.

If I want to know if I’ve succumbed to the enemy’s re-write of my own story, I need to look for the symptoms that point to the lies; despair, hopelessness, depression, unresolved anger, jealousy, futility.  If any of these have taken over my soul, I can be sure there has been an editor from the pits of hell interpreting my story.  I need to be on guard, take every thought captive, and remember that life is one sifting exercise after another.  Thoughts come in ~ I examine them ~ then I keep them or throw them away.

I used to believe that certain events, or certain people, ruined parts of my life. It wasn’t true. Yes, they caused pain but it was my interpretation of the events and what I concluded about myself and God that put me in long term bondage. Jesus was never tormented about who His Father was.  He never stopped believing that He was God’s beloved Son.  He was never trapped by futility and despair.  Though He suffered more than any human being, He never believed lies about his pain.  He knew that everything He suffered was redemptive and would lead to glory.

Each of us need to figure out where we’ve been lied to and renounce it.  We will have a list of things to discard.  We will be telling God, “I used to believe ‘that’ but I renounce it as a lie.  Now, I believe ‘this’.”  I state the lie and replace it with a truth-telling scripture.  The enemy’s stronghold is broken, legal ground is taken back, and abundant life and freedom become mine.

 The only version I crave, and will believe, is Yours.  Amen

God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?          Numbers 23:19

Too many changes in one’s life, all at once, put a person in a fragile place emotionally. It seems too much to process. When I initiate the changes, it’s easier. But most change is what happens to me and I have no control over it.

How do you handle change? Do you have a strategy? It’s easy to conceive man-made ones. 1.) Deal with today and don’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble. 2.) Lean on family and friends.  This is usually the best that we can initiate without God. If things are really hard though, these won’t sustain. Inner stability will deteriorate.

There is a certain kind of personality that thrives on change but I contend that it’s change they control. No one likes an unexpected knock on the door that brings tragic news. I’ve had my share of seasons where someone brought bad news. I’ve found that difficult times rarely seem to last a year, but five years, twelve years, even twenty-two years. I’ve learned that I must draw close to Jesus and follow His lead to develop spiritual strategies.

What did Jesus do when he felt the pressures of his life? He got alone with His Father to pray,  He reviewed the scriptures and His Father’s history. This is the prescription for any of us today who know that the only stability available to us is the foundation of our faith in God.

• God knows all things future. He’s not wringing His hands over this change in my life.
• God already knows the outcome and, if I’m willing, will lead me safely to the other side.
• God is unchanging. Though my life shifts, He is always the same. I cling to Him and not temporal things.
• God is still a righteous Judge even when it appears evil is winning.
• God is faithful and true, and good.

“It is well for us that, amidst all the variableness of life, there is One whom change cannot affect; One whose heart can never alter, and on whose brow mutability can make no furrows.” Spurgeon

He [Jesus] upholds the universe by the word of his power.  Hebrews 1:3

God is a God of order. Jesus, God in the flesh, holds all things in place. As the Word, He once spoke and all things came into being; perfectly connected, in perfect working order, one molecule perfectly connected to the next one.  There cannot be the slightest disorder in what God creates because He is perfect and everything He touches is perfect. 

Because I am not divine, I can’t consistently hold things together nor can I speak anything into existence. I can’t orchestrate even one element of my life and make it run with perfection.  I can’t speak over people and cause them to change or to walk in a perfect state of sanctification.  I can’t even make myself do it! 

I can’t make anyone love me who doesn’t love me.  You know the frustration and the pain of that, right?  Who doesn’t!  But the one whose love I need the most already loves me deeply and completely.  Just one small implication of today’s scripture is that God holds his love for me together and not one thing can break it, not even my disobedience. He declared His love, backed it up with the giving of His Son’s life and He will not, and cannot, end it.  The covenant He spoke into existence rules and upholds it. 

How do I internalize this?  I am motivated, in a new way, to let the God who holds the universe together hold my life together by arranging and directing everything that pertains to me.  Anything I build on my own, as well planned as I think it may be, is flawed and fragile.  It is simply disordered because my mind and ingenuity have been touched by the fall.  I realize this morning that when I am in control of my life, never am I more insecure and vulnerable.

God begs for my obedience because He longs for my world to be touched by kingdom order and divine security.  He tells me the kind of person to call a friend, the kind of person to marry. He tells me how to function in a business, or even how to live as a good citizen. He tells me how to exercise the power I have over others and even has a lot to say about how to exercise leadership within a ministry or organization. As long as I follow His lead, I know that His plans, done His way, will be upheld by the same hands that sustain the universe.  Today, my prayer is this ~  

“Speak Holy Spirit.  Declare Your Word over me and the life You gave me. Amen”

I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You. Job 42:5

The scriptures tell the stories of more than a few who saw the Lord. Each time there were strong emotional responses. People cried out, fell over as dead, declared themselves unclean, and were speechless when they beheld him. We’ve been fed some bad information about emotions not being important, about the preference of facts over feelings. It could really be a paradigm called, “Facts first; feelings immaterial.”

While I agree that feelings aren’t reliable rudders if they run in opposition to the truth of scripture, they are still important. Feelings, when aligned with truth, direct my life just fine. God feels things intensely and I am created in His image. He wants me to experience Him. Love is to be felt. Sin is to be grieved over. Forgiveness is to be exhilarating. Freedom is to be celebrated. Grace is to relax in. Faith is about fact and feeling. Stoicism and Christianity are mutually exclusive.

Tim Keller says that ‘Emotion isn’t just the caboose to our faith. Christianity needs to make emotional sense before it can make rational sense.’ To see Jesus in all of His glory evokes emotion first, belief next.’

A testimony without fire should be suspect. While I understand some people are reserved and find it awkward to be outwardly expressive, I also contend that if any one of us was pulled from a house on fire, there would be visible emotional reactions like relief, gratitude, tears, or all of the above. How can one be monotone about having their life saved! This is one of the reasons I am to live a cross-centered live. It’s a reminder that I’ve been saved, someone died in my place and delivered me from eternal condemnation and alienation from God. I’ve been plucked from the fire and this changes the face of a stoic like me.

If my faith is dry, if I’m out of fuel, what can be done in addition to ‘reviewing and remembering’ my spiritual heroes? I do a self-review by looking back. What has God changed in me that has been most dramatic? About what am I relieved? About what am I most grateful? What has been the darkest area of my life that has seen God’s transforming power? How do I feel about my own sin and His mercy? These answers provide kindling as my emotions engage with the power of God working mightily in me. He is excited about how far I’ve come, He feels intensely about it, and wants to express that to me and through me.

Ever mention the word ‘Jesus’ to another believer and seen their face light up the room? That’s the kind of emotion I’m talking about. While I know there are desert seasons every now and then, the visible engagement of my heart should be what others see and experience.

You make me dance. Thank you. Amen