February 5, 2022

 

Really Pray

 

So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

– Acts 12:5

 

Most of us are familiar with this story. Herod had Peter arrested and he was to bring him to trial the next day. Peter was bound with chains and sleeping between two soldiers. God sent angels to rescue Peter and lead him out of the prison.

 

This story reminds us of God’s power and that anything truly is possible when our hope is in Him. But let’s not rush past this sentence in Acts 12:5. The church was earnestly praying to God for Peter. They weren’t talking about praying. They were praying.

 

A dear friend shared a post about her sister, who is currently on a ventilator fighting Covid. The request was simple and powerful. The writer asked for prayer. He specified that he wanted real prayer. Not the kind of prayer where we post images of hands in prayer or even that simple word that tells others we are praying. He wanted people to please take a moment and really pray for my friend’s sister. The power of prayer when God is our only hope.

 

We talk a great deal about our lives being in God’s hands. We know that while we cling to an illusion of control that we really aren’t in control. Our lives could end in a moment. Our lives could be upended with one phone call, one diagnosis, one ugly rant. We are so often at the mercy of circumstances and situations that we can’t choose or control.

 

God is our only hope. Always. We don’t even need words because we have the Holy Spirit to intercede for us when we don’t know what to say. (Romans 8:26-27) God hears our anguished hearts. He provides comfort and strength no matter the outcome.

 

When someone asks you to pray, do it. Don’t just throw out some words and call yourself done. Actually pray. Take a moment to close your eyes, quiet your mind and ask God for healing, strength, direction. Your words and your heart do make a difference.

January 21, 2022

                               Surrender

 

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. – Jeremiah 17:7

 

Worries abound. Health issues. Financial issues. Relationship issues. It’s like there is always something that threatens to steal our peace and drive us to the brink of anxiety.

 

We live in an uncertain world. Just when we think Covid is about to end, another variant emerges and here we go again. Have you lost someone you cared about to Covid? I have. Many times over. Age doesn’t seem to matter. Covid doesn’t just hit the old and ill. It takes the young and healthy.

 

Prices on everything are skyrocketing. Food and gasoline and everything else are much higher now. But paychecks haven’t increased to cover those extra costs. Jobs are everywhere. Despite ugly comments about people too lazy to work and government handouts, unemployment is low. There simply aren’t enough people to fill vacancies, especially when those vacancies are for low pay.

 

Relationships are stressed by all the demands of this new life we didn’t want. Kids are in school one day and virtual the next. Parents are juggling jobs and schoolwork and childcare. Older folks are isolated from their peers and, in some cases, their families. We are all struggling in what appears to be an unending path to destruction.

 

How do we survive? God. We’re trying to manage things we were never meant to manage. We’re trying to control things we can’t control. We are allowing life to bring us to the breaking point without realizing God is the only One who is steadfast and true. He is the only anchor in this thing we call life.

 

What would happen if you simply surrendered it all to God? What would it feel like to hand it all over to the One who loves you most, the One who knows the answers, the One who can protect you from all harm?

 

We don’t have to do life on our own. We really don’t have to know all the answers. We can simply trust God and KNOW that He is in control and that we can find rest in the shelter of His arms

January 20, 2022

 

Pharisee or Sinner?

 

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. – 2 Chronicles 7:14

 

How many times have we seen this verse on social media? People begging for Christians to bow down and pray for God to heal our land from this awful disease called Covid. People asking God to restore Himself to leadership in this land. People demanding that God restore Donald Trump to the presidency. People living in comfort crying out for God to increase their prosperity.

 

The one thing we haven’t seen a lot of are those same people admitting their own sins. They’re too busy pointing their fingers at the sins of others to acknowledge that maybe they should change their own hardened hearts before they demand the same of others.

 

If Christians truly lived as Jesus lived, our country wouldn’t need social media posts demanding our will from God. We’d be too busy praying and serving, extending kindness and grace and a helping hand. But that might cause us to get our own hands dirty. It might make us admit we’re wrong in our judgements of people we do not know.

 

In Luke 18, Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector both going to the temple to pray. The Pharisee was thanking God that he wasn’t like other sinners. He was praising himself for fasting and tithing. The tax collector would not even lift his eyes to heaven as he begged God for mercy on himself, a sinner.

 

Which are you? Are you the Pharisee who is so busy praising himself that he has forgotten how to humble himself before God? Or are you the sinner who names himself as such as he bows before God Almighty? Reread 2 Chronicles 7:14. Are you the haughty Pharisee or the humble sinner? Your words and actions reveal your answer.

September 12, 2021

 

Ugliness and Jesus

 

Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others. -- Proverbs 12:15

 

At least he now knows Covid is real. There’s nothing quite like a hospital stay, complete with breathing trouble, achiness and fatigue, to convince someone that the virus they once said didn’t exist truly is real. Unfortunately, it didn’t change his heart or his attitude.

 

I simply can’t reconcile the anger and hatred, the ugliness, that comes from his mouth with the faith he so loudly proclaims. It goes so much farther than Covid and a vaccine. It’s about recognizing that we aren’t always right.  And it’s about understanding that ugliness and Jesus don’t really belong in the same sentence.

 

How often do we hide behind our beliefs and use Jesus to try and justify ourselves? He wants no part of it. Jesus tells us to love. He tells us to forgive. He tells us to do good to those who seek to harm us. Except sometimes we’re so busy being “right” that we miss Jesus.

 

The Pharisees missed Jesus. They were so busy being right that they missed the Messiah. They clung fervently to their power and their own holiness, raising themselves above the lowliness that Jesus embraced. We haven’t learned that lesson yet, have we? We’re still looking down on people who don’t see Jesus as we do. We’re clinging to our verbiage rather opening our proud hearts to the possibility that we could be wrong.

 

Anger begets anger and hatred begets hatred. What comes from the heart truly reveals the person who lies within. What does your heart reveal about you? What “belief” do you need to cast aside so that you might embrace the truth?

September 1, 2021

 

What’s Your Excuse?

 

There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death. – Proverbs 14:12

 

It’s been a sad week. A sad mon Ph really. So many people I know have loved ones fighting for their lives. Others are deep in grief for someone gone too soon. The reason? Covid. That’s the simple answer. The rest of the answer is way more complicated.

 

Every person that I know who is sick or dead refused to get the vaccination. Every single one. They had a choice and they said no. Those who are alive are fighting to regain strength and abilities lost during the long hospital stay. They will never be fully okay. Others are dead. Gone. Leaving behind husbands and wives and children.

 

I struggle to understand their refusal. I listen to the excuses from those who have yet to be diagnosed and I am astounded at their answers. The shot implants a chip. It hasn’t been fully approved. It decreases your immune system and you have health issues. It makes you spread the virus. Covid isn’t real, just manufactured by the government. I was in the military and had to take vaccines so now I refuse to take any vaccine. Need I go on?

 

Most of us have always taken vaccines. They were required before we started school. We take the flu vaccine and the shingles vaccine. It’s part of life that helps keep us healthy. But suddenly we’re finding some who are adamant that they have a “right” to not take a vaccine. They have a “right” to infect whoever they want, to get sick and overwhelm the hospitals and to leave their families grief-stricken.

 

Your “freedom” to choose comes with consequences that go far beyond your choice. It means people who need surgery can’t get it because there are no hospital beds. It means someone who has a heart attack or accident could be sent hundreds of miles away to a hospital with a vacant bed. It means that healthcare workers are overwhelmed and exhausted with no end in sight. It means all of us are back to wearing masks because you refused to do your part.

 

I struggle not to become hard-hearted toward those who are so busy being right until it happens to them. Then it’s too late. Then, if they live, they know that Covid is real. Then, if they die, they leave family and friends behind. Surely a vaccine was better than a coffin.

 

Lord, please, open their eyes before it’s too late. Please soften my heart to those who are creating such sadness.