The Missed Turn

But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love]. Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent. (Revelation 2:4-5 AMP)

I can remember as a child, times when we’d be making family trips and would sometimes get lost on the road. Though Mom and Dad weren’t much for arguing in front of my brother and me, one could feel the unspoken tension in the car as maps would get unfolded, Dad would look for a place to make a U-turn, and Mom would plead with him to just stop and ask for directions. Looking back now, it’s humorous, but we all know that a wrong turn is never funny at the time. Depending on where the wrong turn is, it can even be deadly. One time, I remember that we were on the road for a long, long time before we even knew we weren’t going in the right direction. We were so tired already…and how disheartening to find that we were even farther away from our destination than we ever imagined! Roads can change; maps can become outdated; detours can delay our arrival indefinitely. Even with our modern GPS devices, we can still get very, very lost!

So it also is with life. There are times when we know exactly where we missed the turn; other times, we’ve been on the wrong path so long that we don’t even know where we got messed up. The good news is, our roadmap of life—the Bible—doesn’t become outdated. Regardless of whatever “new” roads spring up, all promising to take us in the same direction, there is still only one true Way. The rest are dead-ends. The beauty of God’s Word is, it’s so complete that we can even use its unchanged, un-evolving truth to get us back to the right path, no matter how far away we may have strayed.

I heard a lot growing up about the “doing your first works over” Scripture, but little elaboration on what it might really mean. Back then, we took it that you had to march yourself back to the altar, the baptistery, and through the saved, sanctified, pray-for-the-Spirit experience all over again, basically losing any ground whatsoever in your relationship with God. While it’s true, sometimes we really do need to hit that altar and pray through, I’ve come to more fully understand what the “first works” really are. Were it just a literal march back to the baptistery, my fingers would probably be shriveled from staying in the water so much! I’ve made my share of bad choices, mistakes, and yes, let’s call them what they are –- sins -– in my life. Thank God for His grace and His never-ending quest to lead us toward His righteousness.

Whether we’ve gotten lost on a highway, fallen out of love with our spouse, or have gone from walking in God’s will to a rock-bottom place in our spiritual condition, we have to take steps to recover.

The first thing we must do is stop heading in the wrong direction! That’s a given! As Jesus told the woman caught in the act of adultery, “Go and sin no more,” we too must do an abrupt about-face. It doesn’t mean we can never ever make another mistake or sin again, but it means that, right here and now, we put down that thing down. Paul tells us to lay aside “every weight and the sin which so easily besets us.” We don’t continue with the sin still in our hand and just keep praying for God to keep us from its consequences. He requires accountability and responsibility on our part.

After the stop comes the U-turn. Repentance means more than just being sorry for getting caught, or being sorry for the consequences. We need to be sorry for grieving the Holy Spirit, but repentance literally means an “about-face.” It’s a change in our attitude, a change in our actions, and a change in our hearts! The U-turn itself perhaps doesn’t make everything automatically alright, but for the first time since your wrong turn, you are actually moving toward your healing. Not only are we just going in a different direction, but God’s Word takes us in the right direction. So many times, people will try to stop doing one wrong thing, only to replace it with doing another wrong thing. Example: someone gives up using drugs but then turns to alcohol to drown the pain, perceiving it as the lesser of two evils just because it’s not illegal! If we don’t address the nature of the void in our lives, we’ll fill it with everything else BUT God… and in the end, be just as bad off.

When a couple sits in marriage counseling, often the counselor will ask them to backtrack to the time when they actually were in love; and that’s how I’m going to address the “first works” issue. What attracted you to God in the first place? Was He an answer to a crisis, or did you just respond to conviction and accept Christ? Once you received salvation, what actions and attitudes did you display then that perhaps you’re not doing now? Did you pray more, read more, spend more time with like-minded believers rather than people who might pull you back into a life of sin? Did you let an offense or unwillingness to forgive drive a wedge between you and your Savior? Some of the answers may not be easily found. Just as when you are traveling on a route back to where you first got lost, sometimes we have to remain in an honest time of self-examination just to get back to where we took the wrong turn. We so easily feel justified in some of our decisions, especially in unforgiveness. “Well, the church hurt me,” you might say. Or, “I just won’t rest until I get back at so-and-so for what he/she did to my child.”

Now is not the time to be lazy or a chicken! Your life will not have any sense of normalcy until you deal with what has led you on a path away from God’s peace. How easily we buy into the lie that wallowing in wrongdoing feels better than walking in peace. Backtrack. When you ask the Holy Spirit to reveal where you’ve gone wrong, He won’t play games with you. When He reveals what you need to do, OWN IT. God wants to reconcile you to blessing and favor, not leave you going around in an endless loop on sin’s beltway. “He who covers his transgressions will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes his sins will obtain mercy.” (Proverbs 28:13 AMP)

So, with an honest self-examination through the lens of Scripture, we really will come back to the missed turn. And though you may have squandered precious time—though you may even have to reap the consequences of some bad decisions—God can put you back on the highway of righteousness! Realize that some things can only be fixed supernaturally. Restitution where possible is needed, but God can fix what we simply can’t. Be encouraged in this: a relationship with Him isn’t like playing one of those wretched video games where you run out of lives and then have to start, every single time, back on level one. If your heart is sincere, He can redeem time for you. You’ve not lost the knowledge and previous experience you’d already gained; those are still in your history to help you and bolster you forward. A mature Christian who falls doesn’t find himself or herself all the way back to a “baby Christian” status…whatever we’ve learned in the Word, we still have it. Take what you’ve learned from your fall and use it to keep you straight in the future. “First works” gets us from the crawling position to the walking position again. You are now empowered with the knowledge of what weaknesses you need to shore up. You can be certain the Devil knows your weak areas, so you need to honestly acknowledge them and use the Word to help you conquer those weaknesses. How you choose to use that information will make a huge difference, from this day forward, in whether your end is better than your beginning!

Don’t stumble over the fact that it may take some proving time before others are convinced that your turnaround is sincere, if you’ve fallen into a serious erring from your faith. Accountability is a good thing, especially to those in authority over us and to the people whose lives have been adversely affected by our choices; but your accountability to God is by far more important than even man’s approval. Often, we dread the process of getting back into man’s good graces more than we do God’s. We figure people won’t forget our mistakes, so why bother? Well, it’s good when people trust you, and it’s good when you don’t violate THEIR trust, but ultimately, be someone GOD can trust. People may or may not give you a free pass on bad choices. Licenses get jerked; a failed audit may get us a whopper of a penalty; we might get disbarred after years of college over one foolish choice; and we can’t go back and reclaim relationships with people who no longer want to be with even a reformed, better us. As my father-in-law says, “You can’t un-ring a bell.” These are realities we must accept. God’s grace, however, is always sufficient to cover! Keep your eyes on the Lord, and not whether others feel you’ve done sufficient “time” in atonement for your sins. This word is just as imperative for the business executive, the housewife, the preacher, and the person spending life behind bars! Look to the eternal future and focus on Him. Yesterday’s in the “tomb of time.” Your destination can be eternally good; and the journey to get there, from here on out, can be as well.

So, pull out the only map that will get you on the right road—GOD’S WORD—and for heaven’s sake, don’t be too proud to ask Him for directions! He’s already got a plan to set you right. Never settle for being a believer who, though saved by grace and still headed to heaven, lives a less-than-abundant life HERE! God forgives those who confess and repent, but remember: simple obedience will save you many, many heartaches. The Word is your GPS—God’s Perfect Solution.

A Mother’s Day Tribute

Mothers aren’t perfect. They’re certainly not invincible, or shatterproof, or immortal. We don’t seem to understand that when we’re teenagers; but when we get old enough, we come to appreciate the perfection that lies in their imperfection. We realize that they juggled a lot more pressure than we ever knew in our carefree young lives…and they gave up a lot more than we knew just to see us have more. They didn’t wave their sacrifices in our faces to get our sympathy; but they didn’t get shoes or dresses or needed items many times, just so that we could have shoes, clothes, toys, music. Their advice wasn’t always welcomed—and times we may have copped an attitude, snapped at them, or rolled our eyes; but there was truth in their weary voices when they said, “One day you’ll understand when you have kids of your own.” And the first time you realize that she’s not there when you pick up the phone to call her, it will grieve you that you didn’t do more for her—no matter how good you were, how often you called or visited, or how much you did for her.

I beg of you, if you still have your mother, treat her with honor! Whether she’s a saint or the lowest sinner, show her the respect that a mother deserves. God’s Word doesn’t tell us to honor our parents only if they’re GOOD parents…but to honor them, PERIOD. If she’s angered you, hurt your feelings, abandoned you, embarrassed you with her weaknesses, or otherwise failed to measure up in some way to your expectations; or, if you’ve become upset and refuse to speak to her, please, reach out to your mother this Mother’s Day. And for heaven’s sake, don’t wish someone else were your mother instead of her. Life is too short to harbor unforgiveness or bitterness. You owe it to her AND to yourself to put aside whatever might have become a wall between you, even if you’re having to make peace sitting at her grave. Say what you need to say even if it’s “too late.” Let this Mothers’ Day be one of healing and closure.

When I was a child, the tradition was that the ladies/girls wore a red carnation to church if their mothers were still alive, or a white one if their mothers were gone. I used to feel sad on Mothers’ Day for the ones who had to wear a white flower. By the time I’d turned 21, the tradition was long gone; but were it not, by this coming Sunday, I would have collected 25 of those white carnations.

Was Mom perfect? Far from it. But how I miss her. So many questions I would love to have asked her in the years that have transpired, things that only a mother and daughter talk about. She missed practically my whole adult life. Though we were always open and honest, close and loving, I respect her so much more now than I did. I see her strengths and gifts so much more than her frailties. I even “get” her finally, as I find myself doing little things she did: laughing her laugh, or exercising the creativity I inherited from her. I laugh at the aging process as I’m arriving where she was when her life was cut short; remembering fondly her joking about hot flashes, insomnia, gray hair, and wrinkles. Time only seemed to trace a beautiful patina on her countenance, and I know now that she was truly remarkable. I was blessed.

Happy Mothers’ Day in Heaven, Mom. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Where Do We Go from Here? A Spiritual Perspective on Recovering from Loss of a Leader

Truly, it is a demoralizing thing when a good person is taken from us in the act of doing good. There’s been an exhausting, heavy blanket of grief over our region ever since our Sheriff was taken by this act of senseless violence. Have I asked, “Why?” Of course I have. You probably have, too. In this quiet hamlet of Southern Appalachia, things like this just don’t happen. We may or may not ever receive answers that fully satisfy our questions about why this happened, in the natural realm. But to the born-again believer, we know that the enemy of mankind was the mastermind of this attack on our county. I say ‘on our county’ because that’s what it is. Eugene was the one ultimately who died, but this tragic sin of murder has marred us all. The devil’s intent was to take out someone doing good, and to discourage and leave in despair all others who might follow in good’s footsteps.

I don’t know how each of you felt about our elected leader personally, but please, even if you did not support him or even like him, keep an open mind to what I’m saying. If you know anything about me, you know I would be heartbroken if this had been any of our other leaders past and present too. I’m so not the political type…but that said, I AM very much aware of God’s stance on figures of authority and how we are to respect and come under authority. This man was an authority whom I respected, but also a good and trusted friend. He was a friend to our community, a schoolmate to some of you, a coach for your kids, maybe a member of your same church. Some feel as if we’ve lost a member of our family. It will take some time to mourn his loss and to heal from the gaping wound it’s left.

I beg of you, believers, please choose your words carefully no matter how full of grief or even anger that you are. The Word says that the power of life and death is in the tongue! We have an opportunity in this tragic time to declare healing and restoration over Mingo County, or we have an opportunity to pronounce curses and doom, all by what we allow ourselves to say. Just think of what you’ve heard on the streets or in groups of friends over the past few days. Perhaps you too have said things like, “This place is going to pot.” “There’s nothing here anymore but a bunch of crazies and dopeheads.” “The law will never be able to get rid of these dope dealers.” “Before you know it, we’ll be another Detroit.” If you’ve said something like this, I beg of you, repent! Ask God to annul the harmful, idle words you’ve spoken and to usher in blessing in their place. Begin speaking LIFE to our region and LIFE to Mingo County. If you’re a Christian, it’s actually even your DUTY to speak the Word instead of agreeing with the status quo. You have a good opportunity to sow seeds of peace and hope here. Set a watch upon your heart and upon your mouth!

I’m not trying to be spooky or mystical, but there is something very spiritually significant about the fact that someone in authority has been slain, not for being a tyrant or for doing something wicked, but someone who was trying to do good. As a body of believers, it is our duty to recognize the spiritual connotations and act accordingly to usher in healing and a cleansing over this bloodshed. We, as Christians, must adorn ourselves with the prayer shawl and cry out in intercession for our land. We must repent on behalf of our people for the events that have escalated into the killing of someone assigned as our leader and protector. You might say, “Why should I have to repent? I didn’t do it.” The people who are dealing drugs, taking drugs, and even those who would kill to maintain this lifestyle are not likely, in a lost state, to feel the need to cry out for forgiveness, unless the Holy Spirit conviction sways them to confess and forsake their sin—and they heed His voice. In the meantime, our land bears the curse of innocent blood spilled. As when Cain slew Abel, that blood cries out from the ground for justice. The life is in the blood; it is considered such a sacred thing that God commanded the Israelites not to consume the blood of the animals they sacrificed. Un-repented sins, such as this slaying of our Sheriff, leave innocent blood crying out for redemption. Believers have a priestly duty to initiate a cleansing of this act that stains our land and leaves us all under a scourge.

We do not want to become a place destitute, impoverished, and conquered by sin! This has always been a place where the majority of our citizens, even those who don’t go to church, are peace-loving and law-abiding. Though far from perfect, we’ve managed to stay at least one generation behind the mainstream metropolitan areas in the growth rate of criminal activity. Though we’re often joked about for being like “Mayberry USA,” it’s actually a badge of honor that we wear—this being different and to some, this being “outdated.”

I heard lines of a poem read by one of the officers in the memorial service, where the writer referred to law enforcement as a “thin blue line” dividing good and evil, wrong and right. God bless them for the role they play in securing our safety. However, we must not ever assume that a war that’s meant to be engaged in the heavenlies can be won merely in the realm of the physical. We need an angelic guard standing even in between the thin blue line and that evil! Our protectors need protected as well.

Only God can heal and restore our land and our people, but He delegates the responsibility of the spoken word to us, His children. Will you pledge to begin speaking life words over our region, our State, and our Nation? Will you counter the negative declarations with positive words of affirmation that God has His hand on this place for a special purpose? He can yet bring about good in spite of this nightmare of injustice that’s left us all reeling.

Pray with me:

Heavenly Father, we stand depleted and without words to describe the agonizing loss we feel. We ask You to do the miraculous and bring about good where the enemy meant evil. We ask healing and restoration for Eugene’s family and closest friends and coworkers, as those closest to him are no doubt feeling the pain on an unimaginably greater level. Do what we cannot, in ushering in a sense of peace in spite of the uncertainty that lies before us. We repent before You on behalf of the vile thing which has happened here among us. We repent for all acts of lawlessness that have even required men and women to stand in harm’s way to serve and protect us. We repent for grieving Your Holy Spirit by our sense of complacency. We repent for the shedding of innocent blood, and we ask You not to leave its stain upon our people and upon our place. Forgive us this unthinkable sin against You and against a fellow human being, and cause us as a people to stand before You no longer under the deluge of darkness. May our county not bear this mark as a definition of who we are; may we instead, be branded a people who fear and serve You, and who have “Zero Tolerance” for anything that offends You or that breaks the laws which keep our land peaceful and prosperous. Bring salvation and change to all those who may have in some way been responsible for what has happened; may they feel the full brunt of this grave error and come to repentance. May they make an abrupt turn toward You, that even in the process of justice, their souls’ redemption would be a testimony that gives You glory…and that our fallen brother’s life might have caused salvation to come in the face of evil. Bring justice for those who are now without a husband and father. Godly sorrow worketh repentance…not just sorrow for being caught in our sins, but Lord, bring sorrow that ushers in a change for good. You can yet redeem us as individuals and as a community. As a testimony to Your grace, may the conviction of the Holy Spirit work during this time of our grief to corral those in who have strayed from You or do not know You as their Lord. You can use even our grief to awaken the need for right change.

Help us to please you with our own attitudes about this incident; and while we pray that You will bring justice and closure, we relinquish the right to bear unforgiveness. Help us to release this into Your hands and to give You permission to right the wrongs done to this family and this county. May the aftermath of this incident come in the form of justice, due process of law, and not merely a need for us to have revenge. Only when we surrender the right to recompense to You, can we be assured that You will step in and swiftly act on our behalf. Though it’s hard, and we want to hate and feel anger when something like this happens, we still choose to please you above satisfying our own carnal desires. You know our hearts and You know our limitations, so meet us where we are; and be strong in the face of our weaknesses. We believe that even the strength to forgive, to resume living after such a devastating blow, it all comes from You. We trust You to help us in these areas, whether You bring deliverance instantaneously, or whether we must walk through it as a gradual process of releasing it into Your hands. Help our hearts to remain tender, innocent, and our vision unjaded. Help us to see the good which remains in our people and not only the evil that needs to be weeded out. We are far from a lost cause! We pull down every such notion that would suggest that we are without hope.

We ask You to help our public servants fight the war of good versus evil; and as they act in the earthly realm, we ask You to engage Your angels in a war against the spiritual wickedness in high places, the powers, the principalities, and the demonic influences that manifest the evil we see on earth. Protect our protectors, O God, and grant them Godspeed to do their jobs with integrity, for Your Word says that they do not bear the sword in vain. In times when we, the ordinary citizens, have opportunity to help our uniformed brothers and sisters in this fight to reclaim law and order in Mingo County, give us courage to do the right thing always! We ask You to save those on the force who don’t yet know You or who haven’t yet put their trust in You. And as they strive to do good and act nobly, place a special mantle of anointing on them to enforce the law with godly excellence. Give them a spirit of discernment to sense when danger is imminent; in times when they can be spared a bad incident through merely hearing and obeying Your voice, we ask that You help them to have ears to hear and eyes to see. We ask that you uncover the hidden things and to shine bright light into the corners where darkness lies and where plots against our protectors are made. We ask You to close any doors of evil that may have been opened through this taking of a life.

And Father, we ask that you will keep us all united in the fight to keep our county clean and safe. Help us to disregard political divisions of the past and present, and to honor all of those in authority over us, regardless of party affiliations and the like. Our job is to pray for them and to treat them with respect, so if we are obedient to You in this way, You will honor our faithfulness to obey. Help us all to take personally the responsibility to pray and to act nobly in obeying the laws of the land. And if we cannot help someone, help us always to purpose not to hurt him or her…beginning with our words!

Finally, Father, we appeal to You to send a revival across our region, that permeates every church and every home. May it begin with the fathers and spread to the children. May Your Spirit manifest in a way that shows how much more powerful You are than the vices of addiction, sin, pornography, adultery, and every other evil. Cause a work of renown to happen to where people will see the change in our region and that they will say, “Surely it was the hand of the Lord.” And in Jesus’ name, we reject and break the spirit of Mammon off our region! The love of money that drives drug dealers to enslave their victims, and the spirit of rebellion that causes men to call evil good and good evil, we reject them and say that they have no place in Mingo County! Set angels around our borders with flaming swords to drive back drug dealers and instigators of sinful enslavements. And those who will not fear You and live in an honorable, peaceful, law-abiding way, we ask You to move those people out of our county. May this be a place where evil trembles and cannot rest until it leaves. One can put a thousand to flight, and two can put ten thousand to flight…so raise up an army of intercessors to cover those who serve and protect us.. Your Word assures us that You will never suffer the righteous to be moved. Give our new Sheriff, Rosie, the ability to fulfill every last aspect of the good work You began in her husband.

Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord! In Jesus’ name we pray and receive strength in due time. Amen.

The Right Angle

Your eyes are like a window for your body. When they are good, you have all the light you need. But when your eyes are bad, everything is dark. If the light inside you is dark, you surely are in the dark. (Matthew 6:22-23 NCV)

I recently found an almost absurdly simple gadget that compensates for, of all things, eyesight deficiencies. It’s a pair of glasses (the cheapo plastic ones) whose lenses are completely black except for tiny holes spaced out over the entire surface of each lens. Now, being very, VERY nearsighted (and most recently, adding the need for bifocals too—how can one be nearsighted AND farsighted?!!), I was skeptical. But to my surprise, when I popped out my contact lenses and put these glasses on, I could see! Not 20/20, mind you, but this old girl normally can’t see more than a precious few inches in front of my face before everything morphs into one blurry blob. I could actually SEE!

There are some claims that, if these strange glasses are worn for a certain amount of time each day, and in conjunction with certain other eye exercises, one can actually reverse his or her declining vision and eventually no longer need eyeglasses. You retrain your brain and your eyes to do what they were meant to do all along. Now, I don’t know if that’s true, but their theory makes sense, considering that the most common vision problems are usually caused by the eyeball becoming elongated rather than round. The “mirrors” get out of line, kind of like when you get behind the wheel and someone else has the mirrors configured in a way which doesn’t work for you! By merely changing the angle and intensity at which light enters the retina, suddenly the focus is corrected. It’s the same principle optometrists use when they determine the strength (the percentage of “bend” in either convex or concave lenses) of your eyeglasses; and corrective surgery goes after the same goal—to restore the angle at which light enters the eye.

In our ever-shrinking world, we have “light” coming at us from all directions—half truths, humanistic worldviews, deceitful marquis messages of so many different, seemingly good things that our eyes are continually scanning and taking in. And while the little fragments of Confucius, Buddhism, Humanism, Hinduism, Taoism, Intellectualism, and even the Koran may contain some truth, when we combine all those “isms” together, they form a ‘pr-ism’ which scatters our vision every other direction instead of toward the undefiled, unadulterated truth of God’s Word. When we try to take all of those other things and roll them up into one big religion or paradigm (even trying to mix it with Christianity) it just doesn’t work…and the worst part is, most of what we absorb turns our focus back to our finite life here on earth instead of pointing toward eternity. Could it be we’re so full of other influences, trying to mix it all in so as not to miss anything, that our vision has turned to blindness? New Age, old lie.

We need God’s Word. We need God’s Word exclusively. God’s Word is perfect and entire, and it needs no special adapter to make it fit. When our vision is corrected by its complete truth, we can see clearly. We focus on the right things and we think beyond this short life into a much more vast period of time—eternity. Is it narrow? Oh yes. It’s as narrow as those tiny holes in that pair of glasses, but when we allow our spirit and soul to acclimate to its perfect guidelines, we are receiving LIGHT from a different angle—from a SINGLE angle. It sharpens the lines instead of blurring them. It changes our perspective and our perceptions, and aligns them with absolute truth.

I don’t know about you, but I need to see clearly. I’ve wrapped my toes more than once around a coffee table leg or bedpost in the middle of the night, stumbling for the bathroom without my glasses on. I’ve made some major life blunders out of lack of focus, too—painful ones. I’m in an ongoing process of retraining my eyes and brain to see my life and all that’s around me from a different perspective—God’s—and while it’s unconventional to say the least, it brings glorious light into my spirit from the right angle. Anything less would leave me groping in the dark. Anything less, I would surely be lost.

Oh, be careful, little eyes what you see. There’s a Father up above, looking down in tender love, so be careful little eyes, what you see.

The Maker’s Mark

2111280 As I sat in the living room floor wrapping Christmas packages, I noticed that every few inches or so of this big roll of economy wrapping paper was imprinted with copyright information and the year. Now, I paid all of three dollars for this roll of paper, so it amused me that somewhere in the Library of Congress records, this roll of disposable (and not particularly fancy, I might add) paper has a registered copyright that says no other human being has a right to claim credit for the design except its creator. And my rabbit-trailing imagination pondered how many government employees, vast computer networks, and file cabinets are responsible for cataloging and keeping track of the billions and billions of items registered just like this one. Why, even the roll of adhesive name tags was imprinted with little © symbols on each one!

I can appreciate the beauty of the copyright. For the professional who relies on copyrighted works to make a living, I must concede that it’s a good thing not to have one’s hard work lost to someone’s thievery. A few years back, being merely an amateur freelancer trying to break into the world of works for hire, I guarded my first few songs and compositions like a lioness with her cubs. I dared not unveil my latest masterpiece until, months and months after I’d duly completed the paperwork and mailed in my fee, I would receive the documentation with the official seal on it that certified this creation was mine and all mine. Over time, however, when the publisher was unable to find an artist to record my first “big” song, and my editorials had to be non-gratis just to make their way to the public eye, I came to value that seal of authentication less and less. Now, I’m pretty much happy just to see my works not go to waste…and I’d probably be more flattered than angry if one of my works were plagiarized! Ha!

We are so taught to prize affirmation in this society, to be credited with every accomplishment, to have a “like” for every random thought we post. We crave it. We feel we need it. We dare not share our glory with another, and Heaven forbid that it might be said someone else thought of our idea first. We have a figurative hope chest filled with all the things we pull out, on occasion, to remind ourselves that we made our mark and that we matter to the world.

And yet…as I ponder eternity and the Christmas message, the little “c” in a circle gets smaller and smaller, until it’s an unrecognizable speck on the page. Truly, the only One who has a bona fide claim to ownership rights is our Creator. A loving Father, Who sends His Son to earth to pay an ultimate price to redeem fallen mankind; a Creator Who has every right to demand what’s His, and yet He installs in each individual masterpiece something unheard of—free will.

I think, as well, of the given Son, Who lays down His claim to rights and privileges when He leaves a throne to don a rabbi’s shawl and some well-worn sandals. He forfeits, for 33 ½ years, immunity from suffering, sickness, and mortality. For that span of time, He permits mankind to do their worst to Him—and they do.

So today, as I give this copyrighted wrapping paper its one and only moment of glory in the spotlight before being bagged up and discarded, I will never know the person who designed the white snowflakes on a red background and then filed paperwork to see that no one else gets to duplicate his or her work. I will, however, give praise and worship to the Creator Who made me and then gave me a choice to serve Him—or not. I recognize that I truly am not my own; I am bought with a price. I will give Him glory and due recognition for the hard work and investment of love He has made in me, and I will wear His insignia—His copyright symbol—with great gratitude and pleasure. It’s my prayer that you will, too.

“He put his mark on us to show that we are his, and he put his Spirit in our hearts to be a guarantee for all he has promised.” (2 Corinthians 1:22 NCV)

Where Heaven and Earth Meet

I can remember how, when I was a little girl in kindergarten, all us kids would make crayon pictures. Most of the children would draw a house, trees, pets, and people, sandwiched between a strip of green across the bottom for grass, and a strip of blue across the top, for sky. My teacher eventually explained to the children that, in order to draw it correctly, the sky actually came all the way down to the ground, without a separation in between. The heavens touching the earth. Interesting, that I would remember this now, 40 years after-the-fact. I think I really understood the profoundness of it a few years ago, however, on the back of a Harley with my husband traveling a vast expanse of road under a heavy Montana sky. It felt as if that beautiful morning sky were going to sit down on us and crush us!

Sometimes in our walk with God, we fail to grasp just how close He is to us, and how close eternity is to our finite lives here on earth. We live as if we’re walking on the green strip of crayon grass, with blue Heaven way above us, and we’re stuck in the white middle far beneath. We believe in Heaven, but have little comprehension as to just how real eternity is.

God wants to bring that Heaven down to meet us where we are. When He created us, He was looking for living, breathing tabernacles in which to dwell. Those beautiful, ornate churches in which we worship seem like a fitting place for God to live, but those aren’t nearly as precious to Him as a receptive human heart. The more closely we walk to Him now, the more eternity makes sense—and more precious the realization that life goes on beyond this short span of time. There isn’t a strip of nothing in-between…and when our lives cease to exist here on earth, it will be merely a seamless kissing of earth and sky.

Draw close to your Heavenly Father today, and you’ll see what I saw that morning under the Montana sky: what’s above us is so much bigger than what’s below. It goes on, well, forever.

“Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven…” Colossians 3:1 NLT

And In the Bad Times, Too

SOMETIMES BEING FAITHFUL WHEN ALL IS NOT WELL IS THE GREATEST TESTIMONY WE CAN GIVE

“In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God.” – Job 1:22 NLT

My husband and I just finished reading through the story of Job in the Bible. I can honestly remember a time when, as a young girl, I would hurriedly turn past that book. In my mind, I felt that if I didn’t read about dealing with hard times, maybe I wouldn’t have to face them. How juvenile! Boy, how wrong I was! Ready or not, life has a way of getting all in our business.

I know of situations all around me, and have come through a number of them myself, where the outcome of circumstances was quite different from what had been prayed. It reminds me of that old song, “We’ll understand it better by and by,” because there are some things we’re not going to understand here.

Life is so full of circumstances which are unfair. It just is. It has been since the fall of Adam, in which Satan took over the earth’s lease from one man’s (and woman’s) disobedience. Every bad thing which you’ve ever encountered is a result of sin being given dominion in the earth…not necessarily that you or I did something in particular to deserve the bad, but that sin itself has a place of rule in our atmosphere. It sets up a chain reaction of sorrow, pain, sickness, loss, and ruin which attacks everyone in its path. Deserve has nothing to do with it, as often as not.

There have been so many instances when I’ve prayed—and sincerely believed—for a favorable outcome, only for it not to happen as I’d hoped. Good people have gone on to be with the Lord who, if measured by their faithfulness to God, should have been healed and gone on to live out their days unscathed. And every time I interceded on their behalf, my mind always went to how the Lord would be glorified if they received their miracle. My heart counted on seeing people’s faith bolstered when that miracle took place; and in part, my prayers were often motivated by a fear that people would become discouraged and forsake the Lord if an outcome was not as was hoped for.

I can’t fathom how God has such a more thorough view of things than we have. We’re told in the Scriptures that His ways are higher than ours, and it’s true. One thing I’m learning as I grow in the Lord is, His answers to our prayers are always based on eternity rather than this one tiny life. As a matter of fact, if we received a ‘yes’ to every prayer, we humans would make everything about the here and now. Our affections would be vested in the present, rather than eternity. Our desires would be totally self-serving.

I’m not saying that everything we ask for is selfish. Most of the time, we’re asking for good things; needed things. But just as a child who gets everything it whines for, we too would become spoiled if we got everything we asked for in prayer. We would serve God just for the loaves and fishes, rather than to know Him intimately. When Who He is becomes eclipsed by what we can get out of Him, we bypass relationship for quick gratification. And when good people have only good things happen to them, we begin to forget that it’s God’s grace instead of our works which gives us favor in His sight.

So where’s the balance in it all? We should always pray with faith in the Word and what it says about our situation; but we must always allow God the sovereignty in how He chooses to answer. He knows so much more about the future than we can possibly comprehend. And in truth, sometimes we need to see living examples of people who remain faithful even when the outcome of their prayers isn’t what they asked. Though it’s not what we enjoy witnessing, we sometimes need to see good people encounter difficulties and face them with courage. Sometimes we ourselves are those good people who have to walk in wilderness settings. You can learn a lot more about faith from someone who has to forge through trial and tribulation, than you can from someone who seems to have everything going right and well in his/her life.

If we never have to go through hard times, we are probably not going to be compassionate toward others who struggle. It’s easy to become sanctimonious when we feel we have an “edge” on other people spiritually. Why do you think Jesus allowed Himself to experience everything a human can be tempted with? Aren’t you glad He intercedes for you before the Father, knowing that He has first-hand experience at what you’re facing and feeling?

We also need to remember that when we’re going through terrible things,God’s not doing it to us! Going back to the truth that sin has ruined Eden for all of us, remember that your enemy—the Devil—is behind anything bad you’re encountering. So often I hear people misquote the Scriptures, and their explanation of the hard time is that “God won’t PUT ANYTHING on us that we can’t bear.” That’s not what it says! It says, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not LET you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Cor. 10:13 NIV) Furthermore, His Word says, “And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else.” (James 1:13 NLT) It is true, however, that God will test us; but it’s not so that He can see whether we will remain faithful. He already knows! He allows us to go through things so that we ourselves can know the depth of our faith. And like muscles, faith will atrophy if we don’t have to exercise it once in awhile. Remember, a test from God is designed to strengthen and refine you…a temptation or attack of the enemy is an attempt to destroy you, and at the very least, to destroy your faith. If something has come about to steal from you, to kill you, or to destroy you or someone you love, it’s not God’s doing! It’s orchestrated by the one who kills, steals, and destroys. Jesus’ will is to give you life—and a more abundant one, at that!

As we wait for answers to our many requests today, I pray that we will be willing to allow God to answer our needs in light of eternity. I pray that we’ll be mature enough to endure with grace those seasons when there is no detour around trouble. And I pray that, should we have to come through something unthinkably hard, our testimony of remaining faithful to the end will be as effective an example as if our troubles had vanished immediately upon asking. Whether you realize it, your life and how you live it is an ongoing teaching to others, so we need to be teaching the right lesson! It’s not all about this life, but eternity! Those saints who allowed themselves to be martyred for their faith knew this…and not even death could defeat them. Even now, when we come to the end of this finite human life, death cannot defeat us because Jesus took the keys to death and Hell!

Lord, we want blessing all the time; we just do. The carnal, selfish part craves getting our own way and it pouts when we don’t get it. But I pray, help us this day to be faithful in plenty and in famine, in good times and in bad, and in times when the answer isn’t what we asked for. You are good all the time; may our speech, our attitudes, and our actions point to an eternal versus a temporal hope in You. Just as You restored Job after a terrible storm in his life, You will take care of us too. In life and in death, people are watching us, so help us to live right and to die right, perhaps leading someone else to an eternity with You in the process. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

An Internal Fountain of Youth

Since I’ve reached a certain median age, it seems as if every mail order company in the Continental U.S. has my address or email. Ten years ago I got trendy, youthful apparel catalogs…now I’m getting life insurance applications, ads for miracle wrinkle and fat erasing creams, booklets full of ugly shoes (which I’ll NEVER be old enough to wear, thank you!), mailers for high-fiber supplements, and yes, brochures for motor scooters. I haven’t even broken fifty yet and already my demographic has changed. Even what little television I watch these days seems to be have its audience pegged for the declining years of life, because all the commercials are for prescription medications and accessibility aids.

So, it is true that each year brings changes to our lives…some subtle and others not so much. The metabolism goes south, our teeth yellow and wear down, we suddenly need either reading glasses or longer arms (smile), and we have to decide to either go gray or fight it to the death. Our society is oh-so-focused on how youthful we can remain, and suddenly we feel that same peer pressure we thought we’d kicked in high school…the struggle to project an acceptable version of ourselves.

We may or may not choose to try to slow the wheels of time for our outer man. For some of us, the changes are too painful to bear, and we exhaust our energy and our pocketbooks just to buy one more year, ten more years, of youth and beauty. Others of us are passively embracing the gradual changes in our appearance, trying to find the humor hidden in the irony of time and gravity. However the transition might personally affect you, be encouraged…for there’s a part of you that is exempt from the ravages of time: your spirit man!

The Apostle Paul revealed a priceless nugget when he penned these words: “Therefore we do not become discouraged (utterly spiritless, exhausted, and wearied out through fear). Though our outer man is [progressively] decaying and wasting away, yet our inner self is being [progressively] renewed day after day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16 AMP) I love this Scripture in every translation I’ve read, and the Amplified version includes the word “progressively” in both parts of the passage. I daily witness the outer “progressively” when I have to stand in front of that full-length mirror…but I often fail to acknowledge the INNER “progressively”…the one that says I’m brand-new every morning! Regenerated. Reborn. A fresh layer of spiritual skin as blemish-free as a baby’s. My spirit man will not get arthritis, age spots, cancer, Alzheimer’s, or just flat-out old. EVER.

If sickness and age-related conditions have taken their toll on your outer man, I want to encourage you to begin praising the Lord for the one part of your being that cannot be touched by the enemy. Thank God for His Holy Spirit which dwells in your spirit, and begin declaring Scriptures of renewal even on your outer man as you speak in faith. True, unless we go out in the Rapture, eventually all of us will have to taste of death…but we do not have to accept just anything and everything that the enemy tries to heap onto our backs. If you’re even having to face a potentially terminal illness, all the more reason to praise the Lord for that part of you which sickness can never touch—that inner man or woman which lives on even when the outer one starts faltering. As I write this, I’m praying for you to find the strength to bravely face each day, in sickness or in perfect health…always thankful, always determined, always looking to an eternity beyond this one short life.

When I was meditating on all these things a couple of days ago, I believe the Lord allowed me to get a little revelation about 2 Corinthians 4:16. When our spirit is daily renewed here, it is as whole and healthy on this side of Heaven as it will be the day we enter eternity! If you’re daily walking with God, feasting on His Word, talking with your Father, allowing His Holy Spirit to dwell within you and guide your words and choices, you are taking on a renewal of spirit every single day. When we get to eternity, we’ll have that glorified body to match it…but there’s a part of you right now that has absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with it! So stop obsessing over the outside and see that beautiful, created-in-His-image inside!

Confess and receive your daily renewal. Allow the Lord to renew your strength like the eagle’s…and when the outside man starts showing his or her age, allow your vision to re-focus on a deeper, more substantial part of who you were created to be. Rest assured that you have a spirit which, like the mercies of God, is renewed every morning! How’s THAT for an anti-aging formula?

“He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water.” (John 7:38 AMP)

Wash and Wear

I don’t buy many dry clean only garments these days, since I’m no longer working in a corporate workplace where suits are the dress code. To be honest, on top of the fact that it gets expensive to maintain something you wear really often, I sweat a lot! No offense to those who prefer or who must wear formal clothing on a regular basis…but I just flat-out like the concept of stuff that can handle going into the soapy water and taking a good scrubbing as often as it needs it. And while I don’t doubt that all those chemicals do the trick too, I’m just a wash-and-wear kind of gal. My needs are pretty simple, so goes my choice of apparel (smile).

I’m so glad that God’s grace provides for us a good washing when we need cleansed from being out in that dirty world. We can’t wrap ourselves in plastic and walk around to keep our clothes clean, and we can’t be out there without being exposed to some things that need scrubbed off of us when we come back into His presence. We can live a holy life among a lost world, and we can persevere not to allow the influence of darkness stain our garments; but in truth, each day we stand before the Lord in need of new mercies. We hear and see things that can bend our thinking and tarnish our purity. Even in times when we’ve not sinned, our spirit can still pick up the stale odor of the world from just having passed through it—kind of like walking through a shroud of cigarette smoke outside the grocery store (a personal pet peeve of mine!).

God has made provisions for our continual cleaning and re-cleaning. He knows that we’ll encounter constant challenges to our faith, constant pressures to compromise, subtle foxes spoiling our vines from beneath where we don’t always see them. Jesus prayed that to the Father about this very thing ON OUR BEHALF! He said, “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.” (John 17:15 NLT) He knew that we need to remain here to be His influence in the earth, and that special provisions would need to be made in order to keep us holy in spite of our surroundings.

Our Lord is the master of cleaning our dirty laundry. He can lift any stain, press out any wrinkle, and remove any lingering odor of unrighteousness. He paid an awful price to make possible this holiness we can so freely wear, and He did it not just for our benefit…He intends to present Himself with a perfect, flawless Bride, and she’s not going to have one speck of soil on her wedding garment! When we allow Him to use the soap of grace, applied against the washboard of loving discipline, and rinsed in the water of the Word, we come out as pure, forgiven, and sanctified as if we’d never been dirty in the first place. New mercies every single morning!

Don’t dodge the washtub today, and don’t wear those stinky clothes another moment. You’re not doing anyone a favor by trying to get one more day’s wear out of them! Step into His presence, receive His forgiveness, and experience the clean of the one true High-Efficiency Washer—Jesus!

“…Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. He did this to make her holy by washing her in a bath of water with the word. He did this to present himself with a splendid church, one without any sort of stain or wrinkle on her clothes, but rather one that is holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-27 CEB)

Vine-Ripe Perfection

One thing I look forward to every summer, which I place right up there among the great simple pleasures of life, is a good garden-ripe tomato…you know, one that runs all over the counter top when you cut into it. Oh, I tolerate the store-bought rubber balls in January when I have to have something to round out a sandwich; but honestly, folks, is there anything as tasteless as a tomato speed-grown in some greenhouse, minus real sun and rain, picked green, and shipped off to market?

Just as any fruit or vegetable is at its best when it’s allowed to draw nutrients from rich soil right up to the ripening time, then harvested at its peak of flavor, so it is with the blessings God has prepared for those who love and trust Him. We often get ahead of Him, and interrupt the ripening process by our lack of patience. We wind up then, with a little, puny, less-than-perfect version of what He willed to give us in glorious fullness. Sometimes we even pass His slowly-maturing blessings completely up for a quick fix from some other source, and the ripened blessings fall to the ground uneaten.

Our instant-gratification culture has diluted the purity of quality in pursuit of quick quantity. We seemingly have a lot more (and I say “seemingly”), but more of what, exactly? The result of excess is evident in our bloated egos, our fat bellies, our maxed-out credit cards, and our empty bank accounts. Our spirit man is often as unhealthy as our physical man, for all that overindulgence of substandard things leads to a life lived just short of ever having real completion. It’s like that tasteless tomato…a bite will never cause your eyes to close in satisfaction; it will never drip off your chin the way a blessing delivered in God’s timing would. At best, it will always be just a means to a second-rate end.

If you’re seeking God for a particular desire of your heart, and you can see that He’s already at work cultivating the answer, leave well enough alone and don’t pick that blessing from the vine before its time.

True patience says that we are willing to surrender even the timing of a blessing to God’s wisdom. A mature believer has learned that, given a choice of mediocre and the miraculous, he or she will reap a bountiful, blue ribbon-worthy blessing for having waited. Does it require discipline? Most definitely. Is the reward worth the perseverance? Take the salt shaker, roll up your sleeves and taste the difference for yourself. Ripe is right!

“So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:4 (NLT)