September 30, 2018

How Far Will You Go?

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. – John 6:66

How devoted are you to Jesus? How much do you love Him? How far will you go when He calls you to a path not of your liking? What will you do, how much will you sacrifice, to fulfill His calling on your life?

It’s easy to follow Jesus when the path is sure and the work light and easy. It’s a good life, we tell ourselves. God is good, we share boldly.

And then, one day, it’s not. Your best friend gets a cancer diagnosis and, after surgery and treatments and hours of prayer, dies. Your husband spends years building a career that provides a good life for your family until, one day, his company goes under and you’re left with a meager bank account and no prospects for a new job.

Should I go on? There’s the child you’ve asked God to protect and guide since before he was born. He’s addicted to drugs. Maybe you thought you’d found the perfect church only to hear another church member gossiping and spreading ugly untruths about you. Maybe you’re infertile, or alone, or your husband is having an affair.

Do you still follow Jesus throughout it all? Do you still love Him and trust Him? Do you still believe He wants what is best for you?

Life rarely turns out the way we’d imagined. Our plans, well, they rarely direct our lives. God has a way of showing up and turning our world upset down. Sometimes it hurts. Always it ends up growing us and molding us into the people He wants us to be.

Staying the course is hard. It’s not like God gives us a map. We don’t get to preview the twists and turns before they happen. We don’t get to choose only good things.

I get it. I do. But here’s a hard truth:  It’s in the hard times, the hurtful moments, that we grow the most. It’s when we have nowhere else to turn that we finally cry out to the only One who can fill us with His peace, healing us from the inside out.

That’s when some people turn away. They want an easy button. They don’t want to walk through the pain. They don’t want to suffer. They don’t want to believe God knows best when He says no. They don’t want to trust when Jesus says wait.

It’s easy to turn to other things, isn’t it? Alcohol and pills dull the pain. Stuff, whether it’s the latest electronic gadget or a new outfit, makes us feel better. We can relax in front of the television, binging on escapism programming as we stuff unhealthy foods into our already overweight bodies. We don’t need Jesus. We can take care of ourselves. That’s what we tell ourselves anyway.

What about you? Can you stay the course, trusting Him, when the way is rocky and the final outcome uncertain? Can you believe in Him, in His goodness, in His love, when life hurts?

We don’t always get the answers we want in life. We don’t always understand why He allows us to hurt so deeply when we’ve tried so hard to follow Him? Through it all He changes us, molds us, until one day we look up and realize we’re really thankful we stayed the course and trusted Him through the hard times.

August 24, 2018

The Choice is Yours

Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the LORD our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the LORD our God.”

– Jeremiah 42:6

I have told you today, but you still have not obeyed the LORD your God in all he sent me to tell you. – Jeremiah 42:21

We tell ourselves and others that we’ll do whatever it is God calls us to do. We mean it. Sort of. We’ll gladly step out in faith on a journey of our choosing. But when God calls us to a place we’d rather not go, well, thanks but no thanks.

Faith isn’t for wimps, that’s for sure! God rarely calls us to go someplace nice and safe. He doesn’t usually ask us to do something that is so routine we can do it without even trying. God is all about growth and change and bringing us closer to the imagine of His Son. He can’t do that when our feet are stuck in the sameness of today.

We like our routines, don’t we? We like our days to go smoothly. If we crave excitement, it’s of our choosing. We love vacations, maybe a game or motorcycle ride. We want to be in control. We want to do what we want to do when we want to do it.

But God knows we’d never grow without change. How can unchallenged faith ever grow deep roots? How can we learn compassion if we never experience heartache? How can we learn to trust Him when we only stay where we can take care of ourselves?

It was a bad time for God’s people. They had disobeyed and God had allowed Babylon to take most of them. There was a remnant left. They sought out Jeremiah, the prophet who’d warned them about God’s anger. This was the same prophet they’d imprisoned, the same prophet they’d ignored.

This time they were determined to heed whatever God told Jeremiah. They promised. Until Jeremiah told them what God said. They had a choice. They could do as God commanded and remain where they were or they could head toward what they saw as safety in Egypt. They chose Egypt – and death.

We make choices every day as to whether we will follow God or our own wisdom. For example: You feel the Holy Spirit telling you to leave your secure job and move to another. You think about it. You pray about it. But you just can’t trust God enough to take that leap. Several months later your company downsizes and you’re laid off. If you’d followed the Holy Spirit’s promptings, you’d still have a good job. It’s a missed opportunity and heartache you needlessly suffer because of your disobedience.

Maybe it’s something totally different. You’re hanging out with people who sometimes skirt God’s laws. They gossip. Maybe they go out drinking every now and then, then leave the restaurant a little bit tipsy. Maybe they fudge on their expense reports. Maybe they flirt with strangers even though they’re married. Maybe they tell little “white” lies. Nothing big. None of it is big. You are confident you won’t become like them. You’re confident you’ll stay righteous. Until the day you don’t.

We have an uncanny ability to become like the people we hang around with. While we may want to be a positive influence on them, oftentimes it doesn’t work that way. The gossip is too juicy. The crowd is too influential. Before we know it, we’ve become one of them.

It’s not like God didn’t warn us. We just didn’t want to listen. We head down a path toward a place we never expected to go. We’ve pulled away from God. We want Him – but we also want to be part of this world. We can’t have both. Trying to walk that line of obedience when surrounded by the pull of sin, well, we’re bound to fall.

God’s people had to make a choice: follow God or follow their own wisdom. They chose what they believed was the “safe” choice and paid for it with their lives. In a very real sense, we do the same thing when we do what we know we shouldn’t do, hang out with people who are bad influences or we stay where we are when we know God is calling us to something different.

Every day you have a choice to follow God or the world. Choose wisely.

May 22, 2016

Wait For God’s Timing

As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling. 8 Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him. 9 So Saul said, “Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me.” And he offered the burnt offering. -- 1 Samuel 13:7-9

Saul was under a lot of pressure. He was facing a crucial battle and his people were afraid. And where was Samuel? The priest was supposed to arrive any time but where was he?!

So Saul did what many of us would do under those circumstances: He took matters into his own hands and offered the sacrifice himself rather than waiting for the priest.

It was a bad, bad move. Saul meant well. He did. But good intentions didn’t erase the fact that Saul had disobeyed God and violated His law.

Then, to make matters worse, Saul tried to blame it on his people for scattering and Samuel for not coming earlier. That’s also something we’re prone to do. Sometimes it’s really hard to admit when we’ve made a mistake.

Today’s sermon was on naming the sin so that we can deal with it. When we don’t actually admit what we’ve done, we can’t get past it. We can’t deal with it.

That’s one of the first things people in recovery learn. And by recovery I don’t just mean drugs and alcohol. It could be someone suffering from overeating or depression. It could also be jealousy or envy. The key is that no one can heal until we admit that we have a problem.

It’s also harder to forgive someone who won’t admit what he’s done. Saul wanted to point fingers. Yes, his people were scattering because they were afraid. Yes, he was facing a crucial battle and was concerned he would lose his army before it started. And, yes, Samuel ended up arriving later than Saul expected. That’s a lot of pressure, even for a king.

But it’s when pressure hits that our true character comes forward. Saul didn’t trust God. He didn’t. Because if he had, Saul would have known God would send the priest to provide an offering before the battle. Saul knew Samuel was coming. His only task was to wait.

We’re not good at waiting for God’s timing. In this instant society, we want results now. We fail God when we don’t wait for His timing.

Good intentions done the wrong way are still wrong. Denying that, pointing fingers, doesn’t change that simple fact. Wait for God. Follow His direction. Then watch His blessings freely flow.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Seeking God’s Path For Your Life

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?” -- John 4:11

I am overwhelmed. Totally. Completely. Just overwhelmed. My mind is scattered in a thousand places and I’m struggling to bring it all together and do what I’m supposed to do.

But am I supposed to do it? Isn’t Jesus supposed to step in with that living water and make it all easy? Or isn’t someone else supposed to step up and take over? Why me? And why now?

I am a person of ideas. Many of them I try to keep to myself because I simply can’t do it all. There aren’t enough hours in the day and there isn’t enough of me to go around. I’m sure some of you can relate to this.

That said, every now and then I get an idea that simply won’t go away. I know it’s from God because, let me repeat, it won’t go away. So forward I go with God’s idea and it blesses people. It does. Because it’s God’s idea. He saw a need, put it on my heart, and now an idea has become a blessing to many people. Just not a blessing to me.

I understand that doing good isn’t always supposed to be an immediate blessing to us. That’s not why we do good. We do good because God calls us to do good and because we’re supposed to love those around us. And I do. So following God means caring for others.

I tell myself this again and again. But the bitterness and unhappiness keeps rising up. Someone needs to do what I’m doing. Someone needs to help those who are hurting and in need. But does it have to be me? Surely someone who has fewer family obligations, doesn’t need to work, someone who isn’t already doing enough, should step up. Surely someone else could do the job better, with more kindness and compassion. Surely God didn’t mean for me to do this forever.

But no one is stepping up and I’m becoming more and more overwhelmed. How can one person coordinate the needs, and volunteers to meet those needs, all alone? I understand that I don’t have to do it alone. I’m supposed to do it in the Spirit, allowing God to carry me down this path.

My question then becomes this: What does that look like? How do I know if I’m even called to do this? I know God put the idea in my heart but did He really intend for me to do it all? Somehow I don’t think so. I’m just not sure where to go from here.

So I’m sitting down again today for some more of that living water. My hope and my prayer is that somehow, someway, in the Scriptures I read and the prayers that I offer up to God, that He’ll light my path so that I can truly see His will. I’m overwhelmed and I need Him more than I can say.