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August 29, 2011

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Christian life, Christian living, Christianity, Faith, God, Godly living, Overcoming, Religion

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Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

People love what they talk about.  We all know this to be true.  When a person talks about themselves all the time, it makes us feel uncomfortable because they seem to be full of themselves.  When someone talks incessantly about sports, we understand that that person really loves sports.  They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t love it.  Someone who loves cooking will undoubtedly talk about it all the time.  If we take that further, we can examine ourselves and know what it is that we love.

I have to begin with myself.  If I talk about myself all the time, I love myself and am not considerate of others.  Do I speak all the time about my work?  Do I only talk about my children?  What is it that occupies my mind all day?  What I take the time to talk about is inevitably what is on my mind during the day.  Is my mind on God?  Does God and godly things come out of my mouth easily?  Or am I talking constantly about my trips to the mall and about the latest things that I would like to purchase?

I have known quite a few different kinds of religious people.  Some spoke of God religiously, showing that they really loved religion and appearing to be religious more than God.  However, I also knew a person who spoke genuinely of God and godly issues with a very soft and humble spirit of love.  I was and am sure that person truly loved God.  It made me think about what is on my mind.  What does my mind stray to when I’m driving to work or taking a walk?  When I have problems, do I consider how God feels about them and frame my conversations with that in mind?

Life in God is always interesting.  There’s always a new revelation around the corner.  There’s always something more to be learned about life here on earth and how God leads us through our daily trials.  When my mind is on God, it comes out of my mouth.

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August 26, 2011

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You’ve got a friend

It is one of my life’s goals to trust God with all of my heart in spite of the troubles that beset us in these sometimes difficult days.  With Hurricane Irene bearing down on us and the weatherman doling out constant warnings of trouble, my mind has been preoccupied with worries and making preparations for the upcoming storm.  It’s important to be ready for any eventualities but recently I bought a little plaque that says, “No worries” just to remind myself that God is indeed the one to trust.

Yesterday, I watched the weather report several times and it was starting to affect me a lot.  I came out of work and got into my car.  I turned on the radio for a bit of relaxing music for the drive home.  It was James Taylor.   “If the sky above you grows dark and full of clouds, and that ol’ north wind begins to blow, keep your head together and call my name out loud; soon you’ll hear me knockin’ at your door.  You just call out my name and you know wherever I am I’ll come runnin’ to see you again.  Winter, spring, summer or fall all you have to do is call and I’ll be there.  You’ve got a friend.”

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  (Ps 46:1)  Thank you, God.  Thank you for your constant presence and your Comforter.

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August 25, 2011

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Time is a blessing

Time: Time is a blessing that some do not receive and yet others are blessed amply with it.  My own parents are now 90 years old and have been much blessed with time.  When they were little, the world was in a great depression.  If we could transport ourselves back to that time, we would be able to feel how people felt then.  We would see through our own eyes that the grownups then did not know how long that terrible time would last.  The only thing that they could do was to live through it and persevere.  It took faith to make it through those days.  It took faith for that generation to help those who were even less fortunate than they.  It took faith for them to know that even if they gave away some of what little they had, things would work out.  Many of that generation took huge steps of faith to make it through those days.  They sent children off to live with relatives hoping that one day they would be able to bring them home.  They continued living their lives, keeping hope as a candle alive and brightly lit in their hearts.

From that period of time, we pass on to the days when that generation was finishing high school and the world was plunging headlong into a world war.  For young people, the future is everything and yet as young people that generation did not know if they even had a future.  What kind of world would practice murder on such a grand scale?  Would all of their loved ones survive such a massive war?  Again, if we could transport ourselves back into that time, we would know that at that time, there were no answers available.  There was no way of knowing the future.  There was only hope and again, faith.  It took faith for them to carry on with their lives, to marry knowing that their young husband would soon leave to fight a war on another continent.  It took faith to hang on during those long years of separation.  Finally, the war ended, loved ones returned and hope was fulfilled, but not for all.  Somehow the world carried on and the post war years seemed like a happy respite from trouble, although even then, nothing came easily.  Faith continued to sustain the people of that era as they navigated their way through the tumultuous years of the sixties.

Through the years, nothing has ever been certain, nothing one hundred percent guaranteed.  However, faith carried many of that generation through and brought them to a lovely green pasture with a beautiful view of all of the fruits of their labor.  That is the blessing of time.  A person is allowed the pleasure of seeing his or her life dreams fulfilled and the hardships of life resolved.  Children grow up and encounter their own troubles in life.  Parents look on and hold on to their faith.  As time passes, situations work out somehow and you can see the marvelous hand of God and stand back in awe at what He has done.  Grandchildren arrive, even great grandchildren, and so the cycle continues, each generation needing to find their own measure of faith to hold them through troublesome times.  It is an outstanding blessing to live long enough to see new generations find their way, enter into constructive careers, begin happy marriages and take the first steps into their paths of life.  Yes, time is a blessing.  What a blessing at the end of a life to see life’s troubles resolved and multitudes of difficult situations resolve themselves in happy endings.

We all love stories with happy endings and faith will carry you through until you can see it with your own eyes.  However, even in the Scriptures, not everyone is given the blessing of seeing the end of a matter.  Many a servant of God could only maintain his or her faith through until the end of their part of the grand picture, leaving this world in faith, hoping that the eternal purpose would one day be fulfilled.  Sometimes we feel as though we are in the midst of Psalm 23.  “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”  Yes, surely we have all felt that way a time or two as we walk along this road.  Faith continues on with the second half of that verse: “I will fear no evil.”  It takes faith to continue walking and fearing nothing.  The lives of faithful servants offer hope to new generations of young people, that though their times of trial are just beginning, if they just continue on in faith as the previous generation has done, they too will come to the day when they will see the fruits of their labor and see the resolution of their life’s trials.   Living examples of faith from the past are an inspiration to us and offer us a very real hope.  The cycle continues and we become those living examples, passing on the faith from generation to generation.

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August 16, 2011

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A Word Fitly Spoken

Recently I went to a family reunion for my parents’ 90th birthdays.  About a month after that we went to a family wedding on my husband’s side of the family.  Giving each event a perfunctory glance, one might say it’s all about food, flowers, music, cake, cookies and a lot of chatter.  However, there is so much more going on.  The Scriptures encourage us to get together with the family of God.  Why?  These experiences with my natural family made the answer abundantly clear to me.

On the surface, a white bridal runner, home made Italian cookies piled high on the dessert table, luscious carrot cake with ivory frosting, champagne toasts and many clinkings of glasses while the young couple reward us with a kiss.  But beneath the white roses (with just a hint of pink), wishes of congratulations and happy smiles runs a current of issues: hearts that ache due to broken relationships.  Faces marked by rivers of tears now slightly dried from their recent rivers flowing down.  Hearts bruised from life’s fiery trials, looking for answers, praying for hope.

Amidst all of these hidden hurts, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver (Pr 25:11).   We have in our hearts and tongues the power to heal a heart and give someone hope.  A measure of friendship lessens the depth of the creases where tears have worn deep crevasses.  One young life looking for direction, another looking for hope.  Even a quick prayer costs me nothing but my time and yet the results are enormous.  How can we know of these situations if we don’t get together with our brothers and sisters?  When we see each other, so much is going on.  Where the threads of our relationships have been torn, they are being stitched back together.  Patches are sown over places made bare from the daily wear and tear of life.  Restorations and connections are happening even under the surface.  God is not idle.  If we give Him just a bit of our time and effort, He’ll run with it and stretch it out to last a lifetime.  Especially in difficult times, much is accomplished.

Hebrews 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

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August 10, 2011

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Why does mankind allow evil?

There is a generation of God’s wrath.  By looking at the day’s headlines, we could surmise that this generation is it.  Hoodlums, hooligans, just looking for an excuse to create mayhem.  However, God’s wrath is an appearance.  God Himself is like liquid love.  His love is like a mother bear roaring after those that might harm her precious cubs.  We associate wrath with anger, but God is incapable of the kind of anger we see as humans.  His wrath is His burning love.  His only desire is to help further our life in God.  Every single thing that God does is for our benefit.  Therefore, His apparent wrath can only manifest if we force it and if it will in some way benefit mankind.  The tipping point, where evil is overwhelming the good, is coming to a head, perhaps forcing God to step in and do something to save the righteous that remain.

A lot of people wonder why God even allows evil.  But the true question seems to be, why do humans allow it?  For thousands of years, God has been so patient and kind, waiting for mankind to understand just a few basic ideas of practical living.  Love God first.  Do unto other people what you would have them do unto you.  Take care of your earth because it is the gift of God to feed you and to heal you.  Be kind to all of God’s creation because He made it and therefore it’s good.  There have been a few who understood and lived His life while they were here on earth.  Many of them were horribly persecuted by those that didn’t want to live that same kind of life.

Basically we have screwed up so badly.  We can’t just point the finger at youthful hooligans and say that they are the problem.  They are more of a symptom than the core of the problem.  Every area of human life is in a shambles: religion, government, education, agriculture, justice, family life.  The list is very long.  Can you think of any area of human life that isn’t in total disarray?  I can’t.  Oh yes, there are exceptions here and there, but the major part of our civilization apparently cannot be recovered.  If we don’t fix it, we force God out of His heavens.  We force Him to come and fix what we won’t.  Isaiah 64:1, 2 says: “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at they presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make they name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!”  If He has to come down and fix things, He will come with flaming fury.  If we force His hand, He will come “with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgments upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds … (Jude 14, 15)”

God’s heart of liquid love is broken because of the hurt being done to innocent people.  His heart aches for someone, or someones, to start a revival of basic human decency.  He has never left anyone without any hope.  There will always be the story of Jonah.  Ninevah was to be destroyed, but they repented and our holy and almighty God changed His mind and did not destroy them.  In Malachi, He ends the Old Testament with this warning: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”  It is a dreadful thought.  A study of God’s curses show that He is exquisitely precise and righteous.  In the modern vernacular, He knows how to nail you.  However, in the warning is also an exceptionally bright promise.  If the heart changes and fathers and children once again love and respect each other, then, like the great city of Ninevah, we can touch the heart of our awesome Father and He will turn away His anger for “the curse causeless shall not come.”  (Proverbs 26:2)

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August 7, 2011

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As a Man Thinketh

There is a little book called “As a Man Thinketh.”  It was written by James Allen.  It contains a wonderful truth about the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  It says that our circumstances are a reflection of our interior state and that we have power over those circumstances.  If we would wish to improve the situations that are a part of our lives, we should look interiorly and change the things that we find there that are impoverished or base in nature.  When we change those things, our outside situations must follow suit.  The Bible teaches us the same lesson.  Moses caused the sinning Hebrews to drink of the very golden calf that they had made.  Later on during their journey, he made a serpent on a pole and they had to look at their own sin and admit what they had done.  When they did that, they were healed of the plague that was afflicting them.  Jesus taught us the same lesson.  He was crucified when in fact it was our sins that deserved such a death.  By looking at him on the cross, seeing our own sins and acknowledging them, we are healed.

Our country has sinned and our sin is staring us in the face.  We need to look at it and acknowledge it.  Our nation owes 14 trillion dollars.  How is that even possible?  How could we ever pay back such a debt?  The answer is that we don’t intend to pay it back.  We have become a nation of credit card users.  We buy without any limits.  When you look at such a situation and try to analyze it, you can see that most of the time greed is at the root of much of our debt.  We want something and don’t have the money at the moment to pay for it so we just charge it because it is so easy.  Our parents’ generation and generations previous to them waited until they had the money to buy something.  It took patience and self control to wait.  Our plastic credit card generation has lost those qualities.  There is no patience needed any more, so no one possesses this wonderful quality.  There is no need to have self control.  Everyone feels that they are due whatever they want.

Therefore our country is the same as us.  We are angry at our legislators and our government for their wild spending and yet we do the same.  God cannot continue to bless our nation.  That doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us.  He DOES love us.  He is in supreme control of everything but He cannot allow us to continue on such a path.  That path is leading to our downfall.  Our present situation is the result of our own free will actions.  It is not God’s fault that we are in trouble.  We can only point the finger at ourselves.  We must correct ourselves first.  When we do, our nation will reflect this change in our nature and follow suit.  We have to acknowledge our sins and change.

There are many other areas in which we have sinned.  We have left God out of everything.  We have murdered millions of babies before they had a chance to be born.  We have bought into so many of satan’s lies.  He has seduced us away from our faith and our love for others.  Returning to the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule will get us back on the right path.  It takes just a change of heart.  Our dear Father is so willing to help us along.  He is so willing for us to change and to live right.  He is so desirous to find a nation that will love Him and obey Him.  He would love to bless that nation and make an example of it so that others could follow in its path.  We can do it.

The little book called “As a Man Thinketh” is online in its entirety.  It can be found at the following website:

http://jamesallen.wwwhubs.com/think.htm

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July 24, 2011

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The Handwriting on the Wall

Our civilization as we know it is no longer sustainable.  You don’t need to look far to discover this sad fact.  Our system of education is imploding.  Our government can no longer govern properly.  Our system of agriculture is killing us and is causing massive pollution and erosion of precious topsoil.  If you examine every section of our modern society, it is corrupt and rotten.  Isaiah put it best in chapter one when he said, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises and putrifying sores…”

We have to ask ourselves why and even so the answer is staring us blankly and yet accusingly in the face.  We are at fault.  God created this earth a beautiful paradise, but in a few short years (compared to the length of our planet’s existence) we have destroyed it and are coming close to destroying mankind from it.  Again, we can look to Isaiah for the reason: “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.”  It’s true that we, the human race, have devolved.  Most recently we have produced monsters that prey on innocents, that kill hundreds of people and call it God.  How can these things be?  It is disheartening and disturbing.

However, rather than go on about the deficiencies of our modern life, we need to look for solutions and find a way out of what has become a society ready to plunge into great darkness.  Perhaps we can’t save the whole, but we can save ourselves.  We can individually turn back to God.  We can live by His laws.  He did not give us thousands of laws.  He gave us ten and then gave us one that encompasses all: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  I would not like people to gossip about me or hurt me in any way.  Let the change begin with me.  Each individual can only do it for himself and pray that it catches on and others will see that such a life is bountifully blessed.

I can begin to respect God’s creation and live in harmony with it.  Yes, it is mine to use but to use wisely.  God said, “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.”  He did not say to steal its riches and deplete its resources until there is nothing left for future generations.  God put the man in the garden to dress it and KEEP it.  We have not been good stewards of this gift of the earth.  The only solution is to acknowledge our fault.  We cannot put the blame on anyone else.  We have done this thing.  Then we have to turn to God for the solutions.  He has an answer.  He is really willing for us to make it.  And, if God be for us, who can be against us?  No one.  No thing.  We can do it.  There is a little time for us to change.  Let’s change now!

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March 14, 2011

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The Solution to our environmental problems

A friend recently posted a very heart wrenching video on youtube about the environment.  As I write these sentences, more and more of the Amazon rain forest is being destroyed.  More of the world’s oceans are being polluted.  The runoff from the large industrial farms in the American midwest is producing dead zones in large sections of the Gulf of Mexico.  Right now, nuclear power facilities in Japan are in jeopardy of failing.  So much of what God created is being destroyed.  Many species of plants and animals are disappearing from off this earth forever.  The question is: what can be done about it?  Why don’t we try to stop it?

If you examine these problems and try to understand what is causing them, you have to see that they are all eventually caused by greed, selfishness and hate.  The greed of large corporations for more profits leads to a lot of our global pollution and environmental destruction.  However, it’s too easy to put all the blame on large corporations or some nameless face in the corporate world.  The greed starts here at home.  How am I still greedy?  How am I still selfish?  How much hate do I still have resident in me?  It’s hard to look at myself and see all of those things that I hate in others, but that’s where it starts and, as the famous phrase points out, ‘the buck stops here.’

Jesus told us to get the beam out of our own eye before we try to get the mote out of someone else’s eye.  How can I see clearly unless I get that thing out of myself?  Ultimately, I have no control over others.  I can’t force them to change themselves.  The only one I can change is me.  However, if we all take that step to get rid of the things inside of us that are in opposition to God’s heavenly kingdom, then that kingdom can be established on this earth.  Then we will see the deserts blossom as a rose and the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror.  I’m asking him to change his ways and no message could have been any clearer.  If you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself, and then make a change.”  It’s too easy to sing the song and think that those are pretty words.  I think Jesus would agree with that, but he would say, Go out and DO that.  GO and sin no more.