Just Start With…

I am really not very good at this discipline thing.  Working at something for a long period of time – actually putting effort into something for an extended season – for over an hour and more than a day or two…is hard.

I hear over and over again the need for self-discipline.  I know I am not alone when I say it is SO very difficult.  It feels impossible.  It has to be the hardest thing I do (at least that is what it feels like).

Paul, the writer of over half of the New Testament talks about how he doesn’t do what he wants and does what he doesn’t want to do.  I know he is talking about his struggle with his sinful nature, but isn’t this how we feel about many of our days.  I do.  I tend to do the things I don’t want to do because of necessity, impulse or habits formed over decades, and I don’t do things that I actually NEED to accomplish.  I trade the best in for the mundane.  It’s the useful for the useless.  

What I need to do, I know, is use my time well and get the most out of every moment of every day.  No pressure.  I hear from every self-help motivational guru, “you never get your time back!” or “this moment, this moment right now, get it, get it done!”

But…no pressure.

If you are anything like me though, the hard is not the doing (at least not often), it’s the starting.  Where do I start?  How do I get moving and what direction am I suppose-to take?

I keep coming back to the beginning, in my mind, I want to make sure I get started on the right foot.  When I look at the reality of life before me, it is living well that really motivates me to take that next step. 

Living well, at least in the biblical sense is wisdom.  It isn’t the bank account or the nice home, the vacations or the ease of my morning routine.  It’s wisdom.  Living well at its most basic is biblical wisdom.  It’s where I need to start, it’s where we all need to start.  

Wisdom is using the experiences and learning, the past and the present to act and live out a life of excellence.  To live well with what we have at our disposal.  And to begin this process of wisdom – the starting place for everything…the proverbial sage tells us:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, 

and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

                                                                                                            Proverbs 9:10

When I ask my youngest what fear is at bedtime he points to his closet and comments about a phobia of clowns but that isn’t the kind of fear the sage is talking about.  

Fear is better understood as awe.  Not “cute puppy” awe.  An awe that seizes us in magnitude and depth bringing us into a speechless and reverent quiet.  It’s an awe that dumbs us for a moment as we look to the radiance and brilliance, the purity and perfect and otherness of what is before us and surrounding us.  

This is the awe that should enrapture our hearts and minds and make our souls sing in silent contemplative praise of the God who created us and everything seen and unseen before our eyes and imaginations.  This is the beginning of wisdom; this is where we start.  We start with an awe.  A vision of goodness and grace of God for the sinner, the one lost, the one in need, you and I, the whole human race.  

Reflecting on what this means for me, what this means for all of us…

We need to be humble enough to recognize His greatness and this demands that we, in tandem recognize our own humanity.  Humility in understanding that He is God and we are but the created.  Loved, yes.  But still created.  Created for purpose and meaning – to bring glory to our creator.  

I see my own frailty and mortality when I really stand in awe of God.  I am reminded of how much separates me from him.  A giant gulf of space made imminent only by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I am but dust and time brings me ever closer to that reality once again.  But he, the creator and God of the universe, is infinite and time is a tool to be used for his glory.

This wisdom will require me, will require us to seek out God and ALL his power and eternity and when we find him, bow.  That is the awe. When the seeker discovers the greatness and majesty and glory of the Father in heaven – our creator and God, we bow.  The ancients call this prostration.  We fall face down in reverent awe because who we see – we just can’t stand before.  

This wisdom, this starting point isn’t something that I can just do.  It isn’t something that we can just check off the bucket list and move on to bungee jumping.  It is something that becomes us.  

An awe of God requires me to reflect and know the beginnings of myself.  It demands my all, not just parts here and there.  

Starting it seems is the most difficult because I have to really want it, really recognize my need for it and chase after it with EVERYTHING that is me.  In order to find me in a life well lived – in the awe of the one who made me who and what I am.

Just start with that.

Running in the Rain, Chasing after the Storm

We have had some amazing rain storms in the past month! One of those rain storms just pelted our region and left everything soaking wet. No, we don’t often get really bad storms in Southwestern Ontario, certainly not like the ones that we see around the world, but the experience that we had that night was far more than a simple rain storm. 

It was a dance of lightning that was so spectacular, we stood in silence and awe.  It was an experience of God’s power and creativity right there before our eyes.  

A dance in the far skies lit up the darkness in incredible ways. the crashes of lightning split and twisted along the skies as if dancing one bolt with another.

It was a clear reminder of the things that we need. It wasn’t that long ago that I sat and read our family devotional around the table that explained the importance of lightning to the earth. Lightning does something magical, it produces and supports a sustainable atmosphere and naturally fertilizes the earth, among many other remarkable things.  Without lightning life on earth would not survive. We need lightning as much as we want sunny days for the beach, and we need the rain that nourishes the soil and causes the plants to grow.

These storms are important.  They are necessary.  And I want to be able to run in the rain. I want to chase the storm. Just as the buffalo of the plains would run into the storm that approached, I want to shake off the fear of what is inevitable and run through what brings life.

The storms in our lives bring about the greatest opportunities for growth. Our greatest struggles, those times in our lives that cause us the greatest pain can also be the greatest reminder of our humanness and need for Jesus. They will (if we allow) become the greatest source of strength and character-building materials of our lives. 

You see, we will grow through what we go through. There is no other way. 

The pain of defeat on the ice, the field or the board room amounts to the greatest opportunity to grow in perseverance and wisdom. The struggle of loss will be there for others to glean grace and compassion from. Your weakness and struggle with sickness and pain will be the inspiration that others can tap into. All because we went through it and learned – we grew. 

If we allow it, the storm will help us grow:

We will grow in wisdom.  As we look into our world filled with storms, walking and running through these opportunities will help us to lean on God and in doing so, we discover that it is His wisdom, not our own that will see us through.  We grow in wisdom, but that only happens when we release and let go and allow God to direct our paths. 

The book of Proverbs is clear, the beginning of wisdom is an awe/fear of God – an understanding of who we are in light of the greatness and eternal otherness of who He is.  And it is in the Proverbs that we learn to lean on His wisdom not our own understanding – that is how our paths will find their course and rightness, as they follow after Him.  

We grow in compassion and grace.  Isn’t it true that when you have gone through something so difficult that you are changed through the process, you become empathetic to others who are processing the same reality?  I know that it has been true in my life and ministry.  I see others going through difficulty and I want to hug them, console them and pray with them.  I want them to see they are loved and cared for, that they are seen and their pain is acknowledged.  

When we go through hardship and pain, and when we know Jesus, our first godly response is to be compassionate with others who are feeling the brokenness of their own storm.  Our storms equalize and balance us, so we are building into others the grace and compassionate needed to begin to run through the rain as we have.  

Grace finds its way because we have been given it through Jesus.  It is through this beautiful reflection of grace in our lives by Him who Loves, that we can see it amplified in the lives of others through us, through the storms of life we have run into.  When we begin to run through our storms, we begin to understand how hard it is and compassion grows immensely for those that have gone through trials and storms and those who will go through them as we are.  

We grow in relationship.  We grow, because if we do not our relationships die.  It is that simple.  When we run into the storms and refuse to take others along with us, we often lose them all together.  Here is the reality, when we go it alone, we tell the people around us that they aren’t helpful or useful to us in our hardship (and that they won’t be able to handle it if they come up against it themselves), we tell people we don’t need anyone else (even though we desperately do), and worst of all we tell people that they simply aren’t that important to us – they are dispensable and replaceable for a model of friend or family member that is better suited to “this stage of life we are in” (even though no one is dispensable or replaceable!).

No, when we run into the storms of this life, we don’t go it alone, we bring the tribe with us.  It is how they will grow with us, it is how we will grow through it and it is how our relationships will not only survive but thrive.  We ALL go through storms – don’t think for a second you are the only one going through what you are dealing with right now.  We are in this together.  Your relationships, my relationships, they ALL matter.  And if we are wise (see above), we will grow in relationships not allow them to die away.

We grow in our understanding of ourselves.  When we really take God at his word.  When we really take wisdom from God seriously.  When we engage with our relationships, especially our relationship with God, we will understand ourselves better.  We will be able to see what we are able to accomplish, what we are able to push through, what we are able to live through.  We will see how God has wired us and worked in us, shaped us and formed us to be like Jesus.  We will, in the quiet, be able to engage with ourselves because we are seeing the one God loves and cherishes and designed to be unique and beautiful.  

When we engage with the hardships of life and allow ourselves to see, feel and experience what that entails we are able to come to know in a greater way the soul in us, the eternal person that God has placed on this earth for this time and place.  

There is something extraordinary about that.  In allowing the inevitable storms to be used by God to shape us and form us, to become mirrors of ourselves that are so often blocked by the material world of busyness and profit around us.  

I want to chase the storm. I want to run in the rain and see myself grow into the man that God is making me to be. Will you chase the storm with me? Will run with me – growing with me? Where is Jesus growing you today? Look for it. It’s there!  

Run in the rain and chase the storm.

Places and Spaces

Each of us has one.  A place, a space that has significance to us.  I’m talking about that place or space that reflects love, grace or a mercy that shaped you and the life you live.  As we drive down specific roads in specific cities or rural spaces to can point out landmarks that have memories attached to them.  

As I drive down a road close to me I can pin-point a space and place that I walked as a teenager.  I can remember the thoughts that ran through my head in those hours.  That field that I spent so much time in has special memories attached to it.  

The lake, Lake Huron (Ontario, Canada side) has attached memories for me.  It is the place that I now take my family, but for many years it was the backdrop of my preparation for a lifetime of service to Jesus.  Forest Cliff Camp was a space and place that has meant a lot to me over the years, and although buildings change, faces change, programs alter, the lake doesn’t.  It remains the same.  It remains a place that I can go to – in fact any track of beach on the lake (Pinery Provincial Park or Canatara Beach) helps me to remember and stirs my heart.

There are places and spaces that bring me comfort and remind me of my mission,  and the lake is the best!  It is also the place that I have found myself building new and wonderful and important memories.  

There are three reasons why I venture to these places and spaces as often as I can and I believe that Jesus helps us to see these in his own life and work too.  You see, Jesus had spaces and places where he would go that had meaning to him.  He often found time in the early morning or late in the evenings as the crowds dissipated to go into the wilderness, up into the mountain.  Luke tells us that Jesus “went out as usual to the Mount of Olives” (22:39) and that “on reaching the place” he left his disciples to pray and moved on just a bit further to pray himself. 

Jesus not only had places, he had spaces that resonated with him.  Places and spaces that helped him focus, that reminded him of his mission and the vision that his heavenly Father had for his Son.  The language in the gospels help us see that this was a habit, it was something he did regularly.  

Let me share with you three of my reasons for engaging in this practice:

1. Memory.  We need to remember where we have been and what has taken place.  I need to remember – and just like you and every other human being, I forget – a lot!  There is a reason why we need alarm clocks, reminders on our phones and sticky notes…we need to remember the most important things.  Journeying to a specific place, being in a specific space helps to not only mindfully remember, but allow our bodies to remember too.  There is so much to be said for being present physically in a place or space (if we are able) in order to be captured by memories that will invigorate and encourage us.  

• Trajectory.  If you have known me any length of time you have heard me say – you can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you have come from.  When you find yourself in a space or place that grounds you in your memories with Jesus it propels you to engage with the present and future with Jesus too.  Remembering where you have been allows you to have a firmer grasp on the trajectory that is before you.

• Mindset.  Have you ever walked into a place or space and your whole demeanor changes?  When we walk intentionally into our memories by being present in a space or place it allows us, encourages us, sometimes demands that we change our mindset.  Alter our attitude.  Shift our thinking.  That memory helps us, the trajectory focuses us and our mindset makes a change that can turn your day, your week, month, or even your year around.  A change of mindset- a reset, can be the catalyst to life change, to rekindle your soul’s fire!

It isn’t anything new.  It’s just that Jesus did it and I want to be like Jesus.  So I do what Jesus does.  I want to journey with Him and if that is where you are, if that is your hope and prayer take a moment and answer this one basic but important question:

Where is your place or space?  

I would encourage you to think through where that location or space might be that brings you to the memories and focus that will help shape your trajectory, next steps and mindset for where God is taking you.

Maybe I’ll see you on the beach!

Birthday Thoughts…

It’s my birthday.

I have never really liked celebrating the process of aging, but over the past couple of years I have come to realize that it can be a time of learning and growth.  It has become a time for me to reflect on what has been important to me over the year and focus on some of the things that God has taught me.

So here it goes.  Here are three things that God has really imparted to me this past year:

1. Dependence on Him.

Don’t get me wrong, I have known for a long time that I need to depend on God, but the last year has taught me just how much I was depending on myself – and it was way to much.  If I take one of my life verses seriously (I talk about this verse, Philippians 1:6 here: When I Feel Lost and Hopeless) my confidence in God’s work needs to be evidenced through my dependence on him.

I need to be in the unapologetically in God’s word and in prayer.  My strength comes from him, my wisdom comes from him and I need to be reminded of this constantly.

    2.  Do Life with Others.

It can be really easy to do life alone.  With all the technology at our fingertips and in our pockets our need for others to be around is at an all time low.  In fact I can order food online so I don’t have to leave the house or pay my bills online so I don’t have to talk with anyone on the phone or visit a bank.  When it comes to marriage or parenting, I could easily be present but not available as I sit on my phone in cyberspace.

This year it has been made more evident to me than any other year that I need to do life together with other people.  I need my wife, family and friends.  God designed us to be in community, to live life with others and enjoy companionship.  I need to put down the smart phone and be present with the people that God has put in my life to develop, enjoy and live life with.

3.  Take Care of Yourself.

Wow!  This one has been a hard one to begin learning.  After day surgery in March I found myself struggling to do the things I normally would have done easily a few years ago.  I realized that I am not 18 anymore (I know I still look it but it just isn’t the case).  My body can’t handle the punishment that I put it through with lack of sleep and poor eating habits.

Proper fruits and veggies and exercise, sleep and rest are all important things that I have had to really begin to put in place.  These are necessary so that I can work better, play harder and be available for my family.

Every year I realize that I have begun learning new things.  It means I’m not an old dog, and I hope I never get to the point where I can’t learn new tricks.

What new things are you learning?

Because He Loved me First

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

A silly question I know, but one that helps us understand this incredible thing called love.

Love is this absolutely wonderful and hard thing that we chase after, long for and attempt to give others.  For some it’s a feeling, for others it’s a decision, many are sure that it must be both.  What most struggle with, if they are eager to really think about it, is the question of where love comes from.  Love is so much more than physical attraction and it is more than just a decision.  Love is this incredible gift and it’s one we receive from God.

The love that God has for us is astounding.  He loves us in our brokenness, emptiness, lostness.  He loves us in our most joy filled moments and most painful.  His love carries s through the darkest and most difficult days and it is his love that rejoices in our greatest triumphs and victories.

God’s love envelops us and at the same time sets us free.

God’s love brings hope and peace.  It changes the way that we see our past, our present and our future.

It is because of God’s love that I still believe, that I still journey with Jesus.  It is the reason why I keep walking.

Just like the silly chicken certainly came before the egg, God and his love came before anything and everything.  God loved first.

He didn’t love me first because of my successes and victories in life.  He didn’t love first because of my future prospects and what I would do with my life when I “arrived”.  God didn’t love me first because of me.

God loved me first in spite of me for his glory.

Paul tells us in Romans 5 that “at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrated his own love for us in this:  while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

While we were still in our hurt and pain, brokenness and decay, God loved us to such an extent that he took on the very punishment that was owed to us.  What love.  Yes, I still believe, I still journey with Jesus who took on the very brutal consequence of my sin.

It is this unfathomable love – this unconditional love that holds me fast to God, that keeps me focused and stills my heart and soul.  It is a real love, a love that is patient and kind, protecting and hopeful.  The love of God that I know is not built on pride or selfishness.  It never fails when things become hard.  What I have experienced in the past 25 years of being loved by God is that this incredible love perseveres and never ends.

Because he loved first I can love.  Because he loved first I can hope.

Why I Keep Walking

I have been journeying with Jesus for almost 25 years.  I still can’t believe that it has been so long.  Not because I didn’t expect Jesus to keep loving me, although that is amazing too, but because I can’t believe that I am that much older.  It’s hard to believe that it has been more than two decades since Jesus broke down the walls of sin and set me free my life of servitude to it.

When I talk to people about faith and life with Jesus the question that repeats so often is why.  Why do you keep believing?  After everything that I have seen, after all that I have endured or bore witness to, why do I still believe?

It’s a valid question.  It’s reasonable to ask it in a day in age when loyalty to anything is seen as weak, foolish or an insatiable desire for comfort.

Let me tell you, 25 years of walking with Jesus on this journey of life is far from weakness, I have never been stronger because he is my strength.  This journey is far from foolish, I cannot tell you how much my life makes more sense because of Jesus.  And seriously, the life of a Jesus follower is far from comfortable.

I keep walking with Jesus because he keeps his promises.

Among a myriad of other reasons which I will talk about in future posts, a God who keeps his promises is a God that I can trust.  Unlike so many people that have surrounded me, I can be sure that Jesus will never go anywhere and will always do as he says he will do.

Over 25 years he has kept the promise he gave to Joshua in chapter 1 which is an echo of the promise of Deuteronomy 31:

“. . . I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. . . Be strong and courageous.  Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”  (Joshua 1: 5b, 9)

God promised Joshua as he had promised Moses (Exodus 3-4) that he would be with him. Just as God was with Moses, so he was with Joshua, so he has been with everyone that acts justly, loves mercy and walks humbly with him.  I have striven to be the man that God calls me to be because of his great love and he has never left me nor forsaken me.

I still make mistakes.  But in his love my heavenly Father searches me out, finds me under my bed and reaches out to care for me in my hurt and tears.

I still stumble and fall.  But by his grace, he picks me up and compassionately mends my brokenness, brushes me off and we keep on going.

I still believe, I still walk with Jesus because he keeps his promises, time after time.   I faithfully believe that he will forever.  I can trust this because he has proven it in the darkness and hurt as he has in the good days and amazing times.

God keeps his promises.

When I Feel Lost and Hopeless

Have you ever felt lost?  Ever felt convinced that nothing will work out and the word hope is a reminder of everything that has gone wrong in your life?

I have been there.  Sometimes it feels like I have been there too often throughout my life.

These days of lostness and hopelessness dilute my joy and usually bring to me tears.

Here are three things that I do:

I pray.  I don’t ask God to fix me or my situation.  I know that if I pray that way and things don’t change on a dime it will be easy for me to convince myself that God is at fault when in reality God is carrying me through it.

I pray to find peace with where God has me, where he has placed me.  I ask for help as I change my will to coincide with God’s

I pray to find space with God.  To just rest in moments when I know the creator of the universe and my saviour is guiding me to calm and quiet spaces.  There are many times when being with him is the only place I feel comfort and rest.  There is little doubt that is why I keep coming back to him.

I wrestle.  I take moments to deal with my insecurities and hurt and wrestle them with scripture.  I go to texts that remind me of God’s provision and grace and his long term care for me.  There are two texts that I was encouraged with at my baptism that I have held on to:

Isaiah 40:30-31

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.  

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Philippians 1:6

…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  

These two passages remind me among other things that my strength comes from the Lord and when I hope in him he continues to work in me regardless of my faults.  These two things bring me hope and joy.  More than anything, when I wrestle with the word of God it reminds me that I am not alone.

I talk to others.  This is the hardest thing for me to do.  I want to help others not be helped but I need to tell myself (that’s right – self talk) that I can talk to other human beings and get the help that I love to give to others.  I talk to my family and my friends.

The Christian faith is not meant to be lived in isolation.  This means in the good times and the hard ones too.  Years ago God brought me to the realization that I was not a rock or an island as Simon and Garfunkel sung, I am part of a community.  Part of being in community is talking and listening.  The Jesus community needs to be and is a safe place for me to live out life in my joys and in my struggles.

If you are reading this and feeling lost, scared, broken and/or hopeless it’s okay to not be okay.  There is a God that loves you and there are people that want to listen and help.  Reach out and know that you are not alone in your journey.

What are your suggestions that have helped you through times of lostness or hopelessness?

A Rainbow’s Beginning

It amazes me how the seasons pass, how time moves so very quickly.  I looked out the window just a week ago and saw a flood of rain coming down…so much rain.  It felt as though it was just snowing.  Now I tend the garden again, planting seeds, seeing them grow into bean, zucchini and tomato plants.  The heat is upon us once more.

In the heat of the evening, a rainbow began to emerge.  It began creeping up into the sky and became brilliant as people walked out of their homes and looked, stared for a moment in disbelief at something so beautiful and excellent.  Then the cameras and cell phones came out, taking pictures and videos to remember the moment.  It was for some, the moment when the greatest rainbow they had ever seen appeared over them.

For many it was nothing more than a beautiful sight, colour in the sky.  For others it was the refracting, bending and reflecting of slowed white light.

I saw a promise kept.  I was reminded that God is a promise-keeping God.  I was reminded that God loves me and cares enough for me that he put this beautiful example of His grace in the sky.

There is another promise that I am passionately looking forward to seeing fulfilled.  It is a promise that Jesus made that my heart aches for.  I long for Jesus’ return.  He tells us that He will return for us, His angels told the disciples that He would return the same way he left and I am on the edge of my seat waiting.

I am so often torn between now and then.  Between the present and the perfect.  I desire so badly to see Jesus face to face.  I don’t know if you feel the same way, if you yearn from the pit of your being to see the one that created you and saved you.  I do.  Some days it is a tolerable yearning, a tolerant waiting.

Today it is not.  Today I want Him to come.

I don’t want Him to come because I want this rollercoaster of a life to end, because my day hasn’t started well, or even because I worry about life.  I want Him to come to be nearer to Him.  You know the feeling of being away from the person that you love, you talk on the phone and you just want to reach out and feel their touch.  It is that feeling of true togetherness that you miss.

I read the gospels and see Jesus interacting with His disciples, teaching them and encouraging them, rebuking them, weeping and laughing with them and I can only imagine what it was like to journey with Him.  How his disciples must have ached for His return even more than I do now.  Paul tells the Philippians that he desired to depart and be with Christ.  He believed that being with Christ was better by far.  Paul wrote of his conviction to be with God’s people in body but longed for complete union with Jesus, even in death.  His love and desire to be with Jesus was that great.  The longing for Jesus was that strong.

I see a rainbow and I remember the promise that God made never to flood the whole earth and destroy all living things.  But it also reminds me of another promise yet to be fulfilled – Jesus’ return.  How I long for the day that I stand with Jesus, walk with Jesus and commune in perfect peace with Jesus.

Do you yearn for His return?

 

 

 

 

 

Through the Storm

Yesterday our lives were abruptly inconvenienced.  A seasonal storm rolled into town and as we used to say at kids camp, “we were blessed with liquid sunshine”.  I love the rain but I wanted to finish planting our vegetable garden, take a walk with the family, and pick up some perennial flowers for the front of the house.

When those storms roll in, the thunder shakes the house, rain begins pelting with maddened fury and the my two year old son begins to cry we can quiver in uncertainty.  The storms of life always come with the same ferocity and destructive determination that often dwarf the simple inconvenience of a seasonal storm and can bring us to our knees pleading for the pain and hardship to end; for the agony to be over.

There are many things that are true about life’s storms, here are three that are most evident to me:

Life’s storms are inevitable.  If you are reading this and you haven’t experienced a storm, a real life storm, expect it.  It will come.  Jesus tells us we will have trouble.  There will be pain in our lives.  There will be storms that bring us to our knees.

I have had storms that have brought me to the brink of wondering where up is and when the end will come.  There are so many that have struggled as I have in this life and many others that have had greater storms that cause me to thank God for the mercy that has kept me from such pain and pray for His grace to overwhelm them in their circumstances.

The hardships of life, the storms are inevitable.

Life’s storms are temporal.  As much as they are inevitable, when we work through the storms of life with wisdom and grace, we see them pass.  I would love to say that storms have a specific shelf life but I can’t.  What I can say is that they are temporal.  They exist in this life and have an end.  Some storms are days, weeks or months long.  Others are temporal in that they last only in this life and in this world.  All storms are hard to walk through, but it is in the latter, those that are lifelong that bring out the greatest glory to God and show our greatest resolve and perseverance.

I know that the struggles and storms of today will pass.  I know that I have hope in the promises of Christ.  We can be assured that today’s storms are temporal, they pass like the rain clouds and the sun will shine again.

Life’s storms have outcomes that we will live with.   The concept of outcomes can often be considered negative, yet there are significant positive outcomes that happen when we live in integrity and grace.  My three sons are an incredible outcome to a well lived and grace filled marriage.  I thank God for my wonderful wife!

There are obviously negative outcomes too.  When we live without the influence of God we struggle to make wise and godly decisions.  We can also struggle to commit to the essential blessing that comes through storms in our lives, godly character.  In order to develop godly character He needs to be part of the equation or it’s just personal character built on pain rather than God’s strength.

When we let our character be developed only through pain we establish ourselves on quick moving sand.  You see pain can, and is often forgotten over time.  This pain based character can be eroded and lost, forgotten or pushed aside by something or someone stronger.

We can move on from the pain but God is foundational and present.

When our character is built on God’s strength it’s a positive reminder of His power and our dependence.  The memory becomes positive because unlike character built in pain, character built in God’s strength wasn’t done alone.  In the struggle of the storm when no one is even capable of journeying in the depths of the pain, God is there embracing us, holding us and giving us the strength and courage to be the champions over our adversities.

The storms of life come it’s inevitable, but they are temporal and they give us opportunity to develop godly character.  Storms are temporal but godly character is eternal.  Praise God.

For those of you battling through storms or struggling through the pain of remembering I pray that you will find peace and comfort in God.  May you know and experience the hope of Jesus in the depths of your soul even in these moments of excruciating struggle.

Trusting

In a few minutes my two year old son will begin knocking on the wall to let me know that he is awake and ready to play.  When I am home, it is one of my favourite parts of the day.  I love seeing him excited and ready to start his morning and his day!

I have gotten into the habit of knocking on the heart of God every morning.  In some inconsistent and imperfect way my son and I are similarly knocking on our father’s wall wanting his attention.  But unlike me and my son, my Father in Heaven is always there when I wake and knock.  There are times that I am not home to greet my son when he wakes in the morning but my Abba Father never ceases to be present with me.

It amazes me that my sons never questions my intentions or my heart, they never question my dedication and love for them.  But in my weakness I have a tendency at times to question God’s love for me, God’s dedication to my good, God’s intentions and His trustworthiness.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons that Jesus tells us to have faith like a child. To see Him through childlike eyes.  Understanding Him in light of how we looked at our caregivers once upon a time – with complete trust.

My own lack of faith, my questioning spirit makes me laugh at myself sometimes, especially as I read through God’s word.

God’s connection with His people at the beginning of the book of Joshua is a wonderful example to us.

God tells Joshua to be courageous and also that he is with him.  The promise rings true throughout the book until Joshua’s death.  God went with him through the Jordan river just as He had been with Moses and the people of God through the Red Sea.  God went with him to Jericho and showed His miraculous and sovereign strength.  God continued to be with Joshua until his dying day.  God was faithful and trustworthy.

God tells Noah that he will never again cover the whole earth with a flood and every time I see rainbow I am reminded that God has kept his promise over the past few millennia.

God promised a redeemer and Jesus came to and brought salvation by His own death and resurrection.  Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit and He has dwelt with God’s people since Pentecost.

When I knock on the heart of God I know that he will answer.  I remind myself of His promise keeping, faithful, trustworthy character and knock.  And just as my son is greeted with love I know that God my Heavenly Father will hold me, comfort me and walk with me because He is love.

God is steadfast and He is trustworthy.

My son is knocking.