Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. Romans 12:17 Sometimes doing the right thing is easy and sometimes it’s not. I wish I could say I always choose to do the right thing, but I don’t. I can wage a pretty good passive-aggressive war when I feel like I have been mistreated. I have been waging an internal battle with my heart for years. My heart has a problem with perceived personal injustices. It doesn’t handle them well nor forgets them easily My typical response when I perceive that I have been wronged is a two-pronged approach. First, I avoid the one who hurt me (either physically or emotionally), and second I start garnering allies. By nonchalantly dropping negative comments to those around me I draw others to my side of the conflict. Needless to say, conflict resolution is not my strong suit. I am better at conflict avoidance. Paul writes a lot in Romans 12 about how we are to handle those who hurt us and none of those responses are to withdraw and sabotage the relationship. Paul instructs us to love, to be kind, to give, and most of all to forgive. I don’t know about you, but I can’t do it. I run away, complain, and seethe with anger. I slam cabinets, give cold shoulders, and breathe deep sighs of disappointment. My desire to handle things correctly only goes so far before my hurt feelings take over. So, what is a girl to do when she can’t do it right? She owns up to it. She turns it over to the One who created her and knows her conflict avoidance tendencies. She uses the conflict to draw her into a deeper relationship with her Creator. She prays about it, continuously. She prays for the guardian of Psalms 141:3 to protect her mouth. She prays for insight and wisdom. She prays and takes steps to be kind. She prays for courage and shares her feelings even when she is afraid. She asks God to use her for His glory in the situation. She surrenders what she can’t do to the One who can. She allows the conflict to draw her into a continual conversation with her Creator. She invites Jesus into the problem and follows Him towards a solution one step at a time. God is changing me through the conflicts in my life. He is changing the way I pray. He is changing the way I react. He is changing my heart. I wish I could say it is easy, but it’s not. Surrender is never easy. Heart work is never easy. Change is hard work. But, I draw encouragement from the truth that God will help me every step of the way.
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Clap your hands all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! For the Lord the Most High is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. Psalms 47:1-2 (ESV) The air was electric. The stadium moved beneath our feet as the crowd jumped up and down. (It was the “bounce house” for a reason.) A minute and a half remained on the clock. The visiting team had just scored. With a kicked off and 100 yards to go, the home team fans held their collective breath. Boom. Ninety-five yards later and no time left on the clock, the stadium erupted into a deafening roar. What seemed impossible 90 seconds and 100 yards ago was now a reality. The Knights defeated the Bulls 42-49 keeping their undefeated season intact. Much like the UCF Knights in 2017, the nation of Israel had much to celebrate. The temple was complete. The country was at peace. A wise king was on the throne. It was time to jump up and down and celebrate. In Psalm 47:1-4, the songwriter encouraged the people to celebrate their great and mighty God by clapping and shouting loudly in songs of praise. The praise was not unwarranted. God had delivered them from their enemies. They were living safely and securely in their own land. The ark was returning to the temple (2Chronicles 7). Their joy was to be an uproarious celebration in the presence of all people. It was not a time to be prim or proper. It was time to let loose and let the world know of God’s great love and salvation. Loud celebration was not difficult for the crowd at the UCF/USF football game. It exploded out of everyone simultaneously. No matter what, you couldn’t help but jump up and cheer with each exciting play. The swell of those rising around you lifted you to your feet like a wave breaking on the ocean. No one had to be told to clap or shout. You just did. You couldn’t help it. Our praise to God should be the same way: free, unhindered, spontaneous, joyful, and contagious. Praise should flow freely from our hearts to our mouths. The joy we feel because of God’s presence in our life should automatically open our hearts to praise. No one looks around at a football game to see if anyone notices them cheering. No one compares notes about the right way to cheer. A shout. A fist pump. A head nod. Ferocious clapping. All okay. Neither should we feel the need to look around during worship to see if anyone notices our praise. Singing. Hands raised. Eyes open. Eyes closed. Off-key. All okay. God just wants to hear our heart-felt uninhibited praise. Today, I challenge you, and myself, to take some time and think about our own corporate praise. Are we wholeheartedly praising the Lord or are we holding back? Let’s take a moment and make a mental (or even physical) list inventorying all the things the Lord has done for us. Then, let’s bring that list with us the next time we attend a place of worship and use it to turn our corporate praise into an honest moment of personal celebration of God’s goodness. It might just be the game changer our worship needs. And we desire each of you to show the same eagerness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 6:11-12
Have you ever just wanted to give up? Throw in the towel? Quit? Or maybe at the very least, pull the covers over your head and hide out in bed until you have the strength to face the day? I know I have. Life can be exhausting. Sometimes I feel like I give so much to those around me that there is nothing left of me. The stresses of life often leave me gasping for air under normal circumstances nearly suffocating in times of distress. Just as a car won’t run on an empty tank of gas, I can’t function on an empty soul. Running out of gas is never fun and always seems to happen at the worst time. The sputter, the jerk and then the sudden silence is quickly met with wails. “Not now! I’m almost there. Can’t you make it just a little a farther?” Denial yields to reality as the moving vehicle glides to a stop. No amount of coxing, begging or pleading will make it move again. Fuel is the only thing that will bring the engine back to life. Just as a dead car needs gasoline to operate, we need fuel to function. Life takes energy and if we are not careful, we will find ourselves on empty. Life comes with continuous demands that deplete our physical and emotional tanks. We rush around thinking we have enough energy to get just one more task done only to find our energy sputtering as we roll to a stop. Worn out. Ready to quit. Unable to go on. When our souls are depleted, our spirits sag and our energy wanes. Just like a car that has run out of gas, our productivity comes to a stop. Hebrews 6:10-12 is a reminder that God is the filler of our souls. He sees our work. He knows our hearts. He monitors our tank gauges. He desires to keep us filled and operating at peak capacity. But, we have to choose to let Him. My car lights up to indicate it’s time to get gas. It will even tell me how many more miles I can drive before the tank is empty. If I ignore all those warnings indicators and keep driving, I will run out of gas and my car will stop. If I am wise, I will refuel my tank before it’s too late. My life has indicators too. I have built in signals that let me know I am depleting my soul. When I become short-tempered, cranky, unkind, negative, and unmotivated, my soul is telling me something. It’s indicating to me that I need to fill my spirit. My life tank is on empty. I need to take a moment and fill up on the “assurance of hope” that is found only in Jesus. If I don’t take time to refuel my soul by filling my heart with the goodness of God, I stop effectively emulating the love and compassion of Christ. Take a moment today and check your gauges. What are your indicators signaling to you today? Where’s your fuel gauge? Then stop and give your soul what it needs to day. Cars and lives don’t run on empty. Kindness Matters Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. I Corinthians 13:4-7 I’m a big consumer of podcasts. A wide variety of informative, entertaining, and uplifting stories distract me while I’m logging multiple miles running. Like a good book, a podcast can take me away from the reality I’m experiencing until I arrive at my destination. Yesterday, I was listening to Bob Goff’s Dream Big podcast and he made a statement that stuck with me. He said “Words that are spoken by kind people are ones that have a shelf life in our lives. Surround yourself with kind people who speak words of truth to you... Give away generously the good that has been stored up in you.” Think about it. Kindness matters. Kindness matters to us and to others. Kindness sticks with us. It makes us smile. It makes us feel good inside. It makes whatever burden we are carrying lighter. Kindness makes tough times easier to bear. Kindness matters. I was waiting a few years ago for my husband to wake up from outpatient surgery. I had been sitting for a couple of hours alone in the dark when a nurse quietly came in propped my feet up on an extra chair and covered my legs with a warm blanket and walked out. She didn’t say anything. I hadn’t asked her for anything. She just did it. Her small act of unsolicited kindness changed my day. It made my waiting easier. I felt seen. I felt loved. I felt cared for. I get a little misty just thinking about it today. That one small kind act had a shelf life in my life and the one who did it doesn’t even know. We have been given so much goodness by God through Jesus and because of that we can be generous in goodness to others. Our faith should make us generous. Our world is filled with fear and anxiety right now. Let’s be conduits of hope, grace, kindness, and love. Let’s reach off our lives’ shelf of kindness and feed someone some hope today. Let’s all do one small thing to show kindness to someone else today because kindness matters. Little Tokens of Love Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Proverbs 12:15 (ESV) It wasn’t my preference, but the middle seat was the only option available to me for my flight to North Carolina to visit my son and daughter-in-law. The flight was full in spite of the fact that the COVID-19 virus was beginning to spread. I was fortunate. I couldn’t have picked better seatmates. The man to my left plugged in his headphones and promptly went to sleep. An American Airlines pilot sat on my right. The awkward first moments of conversation with my pilot flying companion began just before takeoff. As the stressed out passengers haggled over overhead storage space and seat swapping so they wouldn’t have to sit by the window, we both shook our heads. “It’s a one hour flight people” she chuckled. I nodded and I told her I taught high school and was often amazed at how adults were often just overgrown adolescents. A few moments later, I asked her about the Charlotte airport and my connection time. I had under an hour to make my connecting flight to Raleigh and I had never navigated the Charlotte airport before. I wasn’t worried, but I wanted to be reassured that I had enough time to make my next flight. . She asked about the gates for my flights. She said if they were both in the main terminal it wouldn’t be a problem but all I had at the moment were the flight numbers. She extrapolated from the numbers that more than likely my next flight was on a large plane, not a commuter, and the flight would be out of the main terminal. She reassured me that it shouldn’t be a problem. A ten minute walk max. Shortly after take-off, I found the gate numbers and showed her. She nodded. Main terminal. No problem. You might even have time to grab a quick drink or bite to eat. I plugged in my audio book and left her alone after that. When we landed in Charlotte, she looked out the window, turned to me, and before I could say anything gave me directions to get to my gate. Then she graciously offered to move out of my way so I could get off the plane in front of her. Her directions were perfect. When I reached my destination I wanted to turn and thank her, but it wasn’t possible. She was no longer sitting next to me. The best I could do was to pray for her as she continued to do her job flying planes. You could say I was lucky or that it was a coincidence I sat by a pilot that day, but I choose to believe it was God meeting a small unspoken not fully realized need in my life. I could have found my way through the airport. It wasn’t hard. The Charlotte airport is not that big. But, it was nice stepping off the plane and knowing exactly where I was going. Nothing I saw took me by surprise. It was exactly how she described it. Friend, God loves us. God cares for us. God meets all our needs, even ones we don’t recognize we have. He makes a way for us even before we get to the starting line. Life is a struggle sometimes. It requires navigating a lot of unknown territory. And the unknown tends to make most of us a little nervous at best, panicked at worst. My airline encounter gave me a glimpse of God’s intimate love for me. He cared enough to give me a guide for the next leg of my journey. A guide I didn’t really need, but one that nevertheless made my trip so much easier. I don’t know what journey you are on today, but I do know you can trust God with whatever burden you are carrying. He loves you and is providing for you in ways you don’t even see yet. Just like I didn’t know how nice an airport guide would be, He provided one in the seat next to me anyways. So, in the uncertainties you face today, when you are unsure of so many things; trust Him. Trust His love. Trust His heart. God is constantly sprinkling little tokens of His love all around us. He is doing far more than we could ever ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). It could even be something as simple as placing a pilot in the seat next to you. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3:9 I turned to the dawdling teenager behind me, “Hurry up!” I admonished. “I am hurrying.” Came the reply. I observed the shuffling feet, loafing stride, and couldn’t stop myself from spouting back, “Well, could you at least look like you’re hurrying?” My three lumbering men drove me nuts when we were trying to get somewhere on time. None of them had a fast twitch fiber to their name when it came to getting somewhere quickly on foot. I felt like a sheep dog constantly circling and nipping at their heels trying get them to hurry along. But no matter how many “hurry ups” I quipped, they never seemed to move any faster. I am not much different in my dealings with God when I think He is dawdling in my life. How many times do I whisper in my heart telling the Lord to hurry up? I look at my circumstances and I think that God is moving too slowly. I feel like He is taking way too long to answer my prayers, heal my heart, or cure my ailments. I quickly begin to hound Him. “When, Lord?” “How long, Lord?” “Hurry up, Lord.” Or even, “Could you at least look like your hurrying.” God is not pressured by my perception of time. He is not fazed by my frazzled frenzy. His will does not bend to accommodate my desired time table. God is sovereign and in His sovereignty He moves at the rate of speed that is required to achieve His purposes, not mine. What I perceive as slow, God sees as patient. His timing is perfect and in the perfect time He fulfills His promises. When I ask, “How long?” God responds, “As long as it takes.” You see, God will take as long as He needs in order to complete the restorative work He has begun in me (Philippians 1:6) and in the world (2 Peter 3:9). So what are you waiting for today? What request is on hold while you wait for God to answer? What are you wanting God to accomplish in your life? Take heart from 2 Peter 3:8-10 and know that what we perceive as dawdling is actually God’s perfect patience as He orchestrates the fulfillment of His promises. …give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food that is needful for me…Proverbs 30:8b Do you remember Goldilocks? The young lady who broke into the Bears’ house and found things to be either too big or too small, too hot or too cold, too hard or too soft. She struggled with finding her “just right” things. She muttered and mumbled because things weren’t just right (never mind the part they weren’t her things, to begin with), but finally fell asleep after eating perfect porridge and resting in a perfect bed. We all have a little Goldilocks in us. We are constantly searching for our “just right” stuff. We crave more thinking having more will stop us wanting more. Contentment is the elusive sweet spot between having too much and not having enough. If we have too much we become self-sufficient and forget about God. If we have too little, we become resentful and blame God. Proverbs 30:8-9 wisely tells us that the key to contentment is the fear of the Lord. Satisfaction only comes when we rest in Him. We can tell ourselves all the lies we want about how “if only I… then…“but the truth is there should be no “if” to begin with. Our lives begin and end with God. He is our provider. He is our source. He is our strength. All that we have comes from Him. Goldilocks could have saved herself some angst by staying at home, eating her own food, and sleeping in her own bed instead of searching in someone else’s house for something better. The quest for better doesn’t lead us to the best. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, He didn’t start with “if you… then you…” he started with: “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10. Our “just right” starts with our Father in Heaven, not with the Bears’ house next door. Where are You Planted? Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. Jeremiah 17:7 When we moved into our house twenty years ago, there were two live oak trees growing in our backyard. Now, there is only one. Within the first few years, one of the trees stopped thriving. It slowly began turning into a tree of bare branches dropping shriveled gray leaves to the ground. Its failure to thrive was contrasted by its brother tree who was growing taller and wider each year. After several weeks of observing the emancipated tree, I finally decided to take a closer look. When I walked around the skinny trunk, I noticed my foot sank into the ground around it. The trunk yielded easily to the slight amount of pressure from my hand; a little more pressure tipped the tree over. A tangle of roots popped up through the soil. I grabbed a shovel and began to dig around the toppled tree. My digging revealed the root of the problem of my dying tree. The life-giving support system of tree roots was still in a nestled circle of untangled tiny tendrils. My tree’s roots had never branched out, grown wider, deeper or stronger. They had stayed small, malnourished, and weak, resulting in the death of my tree. Jeremiah 17:7-8 paints a picture of a different tree. A tree that is strong and flourishing. A tree that reached out to a water source and grew healthy and resilient. A tree more like my second live oak than my first. The other tree in my yard has grown tall and wide with a thick trunk. It has survived being struck by lightning and being ripped open by a hurricane. It’s the home to birds, acorns and countless leaves. It is firmly planted in our backyard. It is firmly planted because its thick, strong roots have grown deep into the soil. Roots that have reached out to the pond just beyond our yard for the nourishment it needs to grow into the oak tree it is meant to be. Same yard. Two similar trees. Two different outcomes. What’s the difference? The roots. One tree was planted just far enough away from the reliable life-giving water source and its roots never grew. The tree died. The other tree was planted close to the water. Its roots grew and it lived. So, what about us? Where are we planted today? Are we setting ourselves near the life-giving water source of God through His word or are we staying too far away to receive the nourishment we need to face the struggles life brings us? Are we letting our roots of faith grow deep so we are resilient when the storms of life swirl around us? Or, will we topple over when we feel pressure because we haven’t untangled our roots and grounded ourselves in truth? Jeremiah 17:7 tells us, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord…he is like a tree planted by the water…and does not fear. Sweet sisters, like a tree rooted and grounded by the water, let’s plant our lives in the Lord. Let's grow strong and healthy because our trust is in Him. Let's let our roots reach out and draw nourishment from His life giving word. Let's not be afraid of what life may bring because we are firmly rooted in the One who supplies all that we need, no matter what. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on our own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 Proverbs 3:5-6 is probably one of the easiest verses to quote when someone is struggling with a life decision. “Trust God. He’ll show you the way.” Memorized when we were young, these verses are our quick to quotes quips. Not sure what to do? Trust God. So easy to say, yet so hard to do. Many times when facing a new challenge have I caught myself thinking, “Just give me a little more time to think it through; I’ll figure it out. I've got this.” Or, “I’m not sure it’s going to be okay. If I don’t act now, things aren’t going to work out right.” In both situations I am leaning on my own understanding and not trusting God with all my heart. It’s so easy to say, but so hard to do. But, the beauty in the wisdom of Proverbs 3:5-6 is I don’t have to worry about the decisions I make when I am walking closely with the Lord. I don’t have to fret if my choices are the right choices or not. God promises me in these verses that if I am yielding my heart and will to Him, any direction I go will be the right way. My path will be His path because my heart is aligned to Him. When a car is properly aligned it steers straight. When the wheels are out of alignment, a car pulls in one direction or another forcing the driver to tug on the steering wheel in order to keep the car going straight. The same is true for us. When we are in right alignment with God, our actions flow smoothly in the direction God wants them to go. If we are not in right alignment we drift bouncing back and forth between the ruts in the road. Improper spiritual alignment lead us to drift off course and forces God to tug us back on track. So, how do we stay in right alignment? First, we have to trust God with all our heart. That means every crevice of our hearts’ desires needs to be entrusted to Him. We need to turn all of our desires and agendas over to God. We need to search our hearts and honestly ask God to reveal to us what we are holding back from him. Second, we can’t rely on ourselves. We need to stop trying to figure everything out, and trust instead. We need to give up control and wait on God. We need to seek Him by reading his Word and praying, regularly. We need to develop an intimacy with God. Lastly, we need to acknowledge Him. We need to recognize His authority. We need to stop being the back seat driver telling Him which way to go, and let Him drive. God knows where He is going and where He is taking us. We need to acknowledge that and sit back and let Him lead. We need to trust him enough to be in charge. Consequently, if your life feels like it is drifting off course, check your alignment. Take the issue to God, the best mechanic in the world, get it fixed, and trust Him to keep you on track. “And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground…” Exodus 14:22 I don’t know what overwhelming obstacle you face today, but the Israelites were facing a totally terrifying and impossible situation. A vast sea lay endlessly before them and a well-armed gigantic army was rumbling behind them. From where they stood, death was inevitable. No matter which direction they went, they were not going to get out alive. It was a matter of playing “would you rather die drowning in the sea or by the sword of your enemy?” Pick one. To make matters worse, the guiding cloud of God was no longer in front of them. It now glowed in the dark behind them. The choice was clearly being made for them. Move forward, not backward. But forward was water. Endless, deep, non-breathable water. Forward was just as deadly as backward. Escape, even just survival, appeared to be impossible. I’m sure they wondered. Why God? Why are you forcing us into a place you know we won’t survive? Why did you take us out of Egypt to drown us in the Red Sea? They may have even muttered, “Can’t we go back now?” Or even simply, “I just don’t understand.” How often do we face situations that seem impossible to us? How many times have we followed God only to be stopped in our tracks by obstacles we didn’t expect? How often have we wondered if we were truly doing the right thing after we had left everything that was familiar behind? The people had been faithful and now they were stuck between a rock and a hard place. The only thing they had done to be in this situation was to follow God’s directions. “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.” (Exodus 14:21-22). The miracle in this story to me isn’t so much that God parted the sea, but the fact that the people stepped into the sea that God parted. God’s power and glory aren’t hard to find. Just look at a sunrise or a sunset. Visit the Rocky Mountains or Grand Tetons. Gaze at a newborn baby. God’s miracles are around us every day. I know God has the ability to divide the sea, the hard part for me is trusting His miracles enough to walk in them. I believe God can make a way through any of my difficult circumstances, I’m just not always sure He will do it for me. I tend to stand still, not moving, waiting until the path is safe and clear before I do something. I want to see what He is doing. I want a well-lit trail to follow before I step out. I crave continual reassurance that what I am doing is the right thing. For the people of Israel, the seas parted during the night when it was dark. God does some of His best, most powerful work when we can’t see it happening. God not only parted the sea for them while they waited in the dark, but He also called them to walk through the path He miraculously made for them. The ground beneath them was dry, but the walls beside them were still high and wet. To walk between those walls of water must have been knee-shaking, fist-clenching, teeth-rattling terrifying. But they did it. They walked through that insurmountable water to safety. That my friends is what gives me courage. It’s not God doing great things (I know He can do that), it’s me walking in the great things He is doing in spite of the difficulties, hardships, and wet walls that surround me. Yes, God will make a way for us when there doesn’t seem to be way, but we have to trust Him enough to step out and walk in the direction He is leading us- no matter what. |
AuthorBetween a husband, 2 sons, and teaching high school my sanity is found in running and Starbucks. I have a circle of running friends who inspire me to be authentic and real as I live a life of faith before them. Archives
April 2024
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