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

May 27, 2018

Put God in Your Home

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

– Deuteronomy 11:18-19

There’s one of those Facebook things that goes around periodically. All my conservative friends share it. Why not? It sounds good. It basically says that if we want to fix our country we need to put God back in our schools and our government. What believer could possibly argue with that?

I wonder what would happen if we stopped worrying about God in our schools and government and focused on putting God back in our homes. Yes. You read that right. Our homes.

It’s not up to the schools to teach our children about God and about faith and about right and wrong. They should be getting that at home. Faith isn’t about a monument or what’s on a piece of paper. It’s about what’s in our hearts.

Do your children see you praying? I’m not talking about the set prayer you offer before a meal. I’m talking about those prayers that come from the heart. The ones that name specific people and makes specific requests. Do they see you reading and studying your Bible on a daily basis?

How often do you attend church? Is it one of those things you do when it’s convenient or when you have nothing better – such as a beach trip – to do? Are your children involved in Sunday school, VBS, choir, sports, youth, and other activities offered by your church? Or are they allowed to say no because their friends from school aren’t involved?

Do you talk about your faith with your children? Do you tell them how you came to know Jesus? Do you give Him credit for your many blessings or do you take all the credit for yourself?

Do you tell the truth, even when it might result in something negative for you? Do your children see integrity in your words and actions? Or do they see someone who fudges on time slips and pads expense accounts? Do they hear your words of praise or do you fill their ears with complaints?

Do you show mercy and grace to people who have done nothing to earn it? Do you remember and explain that God has shown us that same kind of grace and mercy? Do you give without being asked or do you grumble at every little bit the church or charities request? Do you volunteer? Do you give back? Or do you just take and take as though you have a right to do so with no responsibility to ever return even a portion of what you’ve received?

Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. – Deuteronomy 11:16

The world tells us we deserve only the best. The world tells us it’s okay to put ourselves first. The world tells us we can skirt the truth, have that extra drink, be a cut-throat business person. The world says it’s just politics when you pass over someone more qualified to do a favor for a friend. But God says something entirely different.

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. – Proverbs 22:6

What do your children see when they observe your life? Stop worrying about putting God back in schools and the government. Focus on putting Him back in your home and He’ll take care of the rest.

May 19, 2018

Show the World Jesus

Jesus wept. – John 11:35

It happened again. That which we vowed wouldn’t, did. Students ran for their lives as a student-gunman aimed to kill those in a place that should have been safe.

Shootings within our schools simply shouldn’t happen. But they do. Why? Our hearts cry out in anguish. It is so senseless. Young lives cut short. A teacher gone too soon. Others suffering in hospitals. Lives that will relive the trauma forever.

Jesus wept. It’s the shortest verse in the Bible. It’s very simplicity draws us closer to the One who came to save us all. Jesus had the power to save Lazarus from death. And though He knew He would raise His friend from the dead, still Jesus let Lazarus die. He let Mary and Martha suffer.

But Jesus is not a Savior from a distance. He stands beside us to comfort and strengthen us when the senseless dramas of this world threaten to destroy us. He mourns with us.

Why did this happen? How can we stop it from happening again? I wish I had all the answers but I don’t. No one does. Is this pure evil or does it stem from the brokenness of people who are hurting so badly that they want others to hurt badly too?

Our mental health system fails kids every single day. So do the social service agencies designed to keep them safe. We are so focused on saving the family that we send children back again and again to places where they aren’t safe and nurtured and loved. We ignore obvious signs of distress because we don’t want to get involved and we don’t want to provide the resources to help children who are hurting. We’d rather look the other way than deal with the stigma called mental illness.

I don’t know this young man’s story. All the details haven’t begun to show themselves. Maybe we will never know it all. But I do know that a young man wearing a trench coat in the Texas heat should raise a few questions. It’s not normal. It’s not okay.

We’d rather not know. We prefer to isolate ourselves in our own little worlds rather than extend a helping hand. We prefer to talk with our friends, to gather with those who are like us, than welcome someone who is different, someone who is alone. We marginalize people who desperately need to belong somewhere, to someone.

Maybe the answer isn’t in big programs with lots of money thrown at them. Maybe the answer lies a little closer to home. Maybe it’s found in our hearts. Can we be the people who extend kindness to those who seem the least deserving? Can we reach out to those we don’t particularly like so that they can come to the altar of Christ?

It all begins with Jesus. It all ends there too. We have forgotten how to love the lost, the lonely, the poor and the rejected. We have forgotten that they are our problems, our challenges, our responsibility, because Jesus said it was so. Jesus told us to love one another. Why do we think He didn’t mean us?

Once again we have children hurting, parents grieving and a town shattered by violence. Instead of looking to others for answers, maybe it’s time we looked inside ourselves. Ask Jesus to meet you there. Open your eyes and your heart. People everywhere are hurting. Extend a helping hand. Show them Jesus by your words and your actions. Live your faith, one hurting person at a time.

February 26, 2018

Get Up and Work

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. – Colossians 3:8

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you almost must forgive. – Colossians 3:12-13

She gets so angry at the “sins” of others. She sits on her sofa, watching Fox News, and gets more and more upset about all that others have done to persecute Jesus. She goes on social media, blasting the liberals, those in favor of gun control, immigrants, those on welfare. And on and on.

She looks in the mirror and calls herself justified because she reads her Bible and prays daily. That is where her faith ends.

What is she doing to bring about change she claims to want? Nothing. Unless, of course, you count ranting and pointing her polished nail at all those she sees as wrong. All those she sees as less than acceptable.

She is a modern-day Pharisee and she doesn’t have a clue.

She is not alone. There are a great many who share her views and her lack of action. One main point of contention: “They” have banned Jesus from our schools. I agree that Jesus needs to be invited back into our schools. But are we going to use hate or love in our efforts to bring Jesus to the students?

What is she doing to make a change? What are you doing? Our town has a wonderful program called FPKids. It was started as a way for kids to meet at the flag pole at their school, share a Bible lesson and a prayer, before school begins. It is run by volunteers. Some are parents. Some aren’t. All simply love Jesus and are reaching out to kids in any way they can.

The elementary-age kids meet – with parental permission – once each week. The volunteers are amazed at the response. One school had to divide the students by grade levels because there were too many children for one group. There is a hunger there that I don’t think anyone really expected.

Is it a sacrifice for the volunteers? Of course, it is. Some must get up earlier than usual because the group meets for 30 minutes before school. Others must arrange to go to work late that day. But all believe the sacrifice of time is worth reaching children and teaching them about Jesus.

These people aren’t focused on anger or revenge. They aren’t pointing fingers at what others have done “wrong”. They’re simply loving those God has placed before them, offering up kindness and compassion with a large dose of Jesus’ love. They are being the hands and feet of Jesus.

It is so easy to forget that we aren’t called to a life of sitting on the sidelines and pointing fingers at other sinners. We are called to action. We are called to love those who aren’t easy to love. We are called to do good where we are. Sometimes that means getting off the sofa and actually working to change what we don’t like.

So what are you doing today? Are you sitting around pointing fingers and spreading hate? Or are you actively loving those God has put in your path? 

February 23, 2018

Love God and Love Each Other

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:37-39

We are all still reeling from the latest school shooting. Another 17 students and teachers dead. Hundreds, if not thousands, of students traumatized. Let the finger pointing begin.

Why? We ask ourselves that again and again. This is the 18^th school shooting this year, and we aren’t even done with February yet. What has happened to our nation that such horrific violence has entered our schools?

Everyone has an answer. We need tougher gun laws. We need to enforce the gun laws we already have. The FBI didn’t do its job. The mental health system is broken. Agencies need to be more vigilant in reporting unstable behavior. It’s those violent video games kids have these days. Violence is everywhere on television and in movies. Kids don’t understand that death is final. Parents aren’t taking responsibility for discipling their kids. They don’t control their children so children never learn about responsibility and consequences.

The list could go on and on. The truth is every one of those excuses is probably partially true and the whole makes for a broken culture.

How do we fix it? Jesus. Oh, I know. There are those who don’t want to hear that. How could Jesus fix this? Jesus can fix anything and anyone.

And before those conservative Christians start the battle cry, let me quickly add that the beginning should come with the hypocrites keeping their hatred to themselves. I am sickened by the so-called Christians who use the gospel to promote their own political views.

Have you ever seen the movie Woodlawn? It’s the true story of racial strife in Birmingham, AL, and what happens when Jesus shows up. It took one man with a true faith to step forward and allow the Holy Spirit to use him. He could have fueled the flames of unrest. He could have used the violence and discord to further his own agenda. He didn’t. He turned his message to Jesus and that made all the difference.

We are at a crossroads in our nation. The young are rising up and we have a prime opportunity to turn tragedy into a call for genuine faith. I don’t have the answers but Jesus does. He is the only One who can minister to this deep hurt and create a change that brings healing to all of us.

I want to live in a world where our children can attend school without fear of unstable people killing them. I want them to know the peace and security that comes when Jesus is at the helm of all our lives.

Jesus told us what to do. Get rid of the hate and meanness that dot this country. Love God and love each other. Period.