My Foot Slips

If I say, “My foot slips,” Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.  In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul. – Psalms 94:18-19

What a trivial thing it seems to me to say to the Lord, “my foot is slipping”.  Yet we are reminded in this Psalm that God’s mercy holds us up even over trivial things.  We all have anxieties and worries.  Even when we are constantly reminding ourselves of how God has rescued us from much worse events or situations that we are currently in, we often still find some anxieties.  This Psalm reminds us that our God is a comfort to our soul when we are muddling in those anxieties.

I am reminded of Peter who had gotten out of the boat to go to Jesus.  He had asked Jesus to command Him to come to Him on the water and Jesus had said, “Come.”  He got out and walked on the water!  But in the wind and waves of the water he became afraid.  He took his eyes off Jesus and thought about what he was doing, not on what Jesus was doing, and he started to sink.  “Lord, save me!” he cried.  And Jesus did so.

Maybe we’re in a storm of uncertainty today.  Maybe we’re just unsure where we even are or where we’re going.  Maybe we’re uncertain of how to care for ourselves or those around us.  Maybe we’re uncertain on how to communicate to others or where we should focus our efforts.  And on and on our uncertainties can go.  We don’t know what tomorrow brings and we are anxious.

³⁰ God’s way is perfect.
    All the Lord’s promises prove true.
    He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.
³¹ For who is God except the Lord?
    Who but our God is a solid rock?
³² God arms me with strength,
    and he makes my way perfect.
³³ He makes me as surefooted as a deer,
    enabling me to stand on mountain heights.
³⁴ He trains my hands for battle;
    he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow.
³⁵ You have given me your shield of victory.
    Your right hand supports me;
    your help has made me great.
³⁶ You have made a wide path for my feet
    to keep them from slipping. – Psalms 18: 30-36

Our Father says that He is with us; He is for us; He will never forsake us; and He will not leave us.  Our Father is not anxious about our circumstance for He has all power forever and ever.  However, I often wonder if He isn’t like a coach, rooting for us and encouraging us to have that necessary faith in Him.  “C’mon, you can trust Me.  I got this.  Go ahead and let it go and let joy take you heart once again.  You can do this!”  We are told here that He makes us surefooted and He keeps us from slipping.  I pray that we trust in God fully and put our circumstance into His very perfect strong supportive hands.

Trust in God today, even for the smallest of slips of your foot.  Have faith and let those anxieties go.

The Kingdom of God is Within You

One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God come?”  Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs.  You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.” – Luke 17:20-21

Or as the NKJV interprets “the kingdom of God is within you.” 

The kingdom of God is only found in faith.  It is in knowing that there is only one true living God and that Jesus is our Savior.  It is putting such a value on knowing God that you hate everything in this world by comparison.  “If you want to be my disciple, you must, by comparison, hate everyone else—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life.  Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.  And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)  Is there anything in your life that compares to your love for God?  I have often contemplated that it would be easier if I could physically walk with God, but that would prevent an opportunity for blessing.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

It is being willing to so trust in God that you are unwilling to waver in your belief, come what may.  “Don’t begin until you count the cost.” (Luke 14:28)  No one knows where the journey following Jesus might take them.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said it best when facing certain death, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty.  But even if He doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18)  Whether we find extreme suffering or great blessings, God is still God and He can save us or He can let us perish.  The cost is extreme in worldly standards, but by heavenly standards, where the currency is faith, such a cost is minimum.  There is forever and always only God.

It is being willing to trust God even, or especially, when you do those things that are in our nature to do.  “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. … I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. … O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  … The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:15, 18, 24, 25)  No one is exempt from this.  Peter, who walked with Jesus on water, did what he didn’t want to do, but Jesus answered that failure and healed him of it.  As Peter was, we also shall we be healed in our failures where we do what we don’t want to do and war within ourselves.  But we have to respond to the kingdom of God within us and not want to do what opposes God.  Otherwise our faith has crumbled.

I am so tempted to look at others and make assumptions regarding their faith.  Truthfully though, no one on earth knows their faith because only God can see their heart.  “The kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs.”  Do they walk in the kingdom of God, following Jesus with the innermost thoughts of their heart?  Only God knows.  The only way to really have a glimpse is in the redemption of people, those who repent and eagerly tell of the glory of God.  “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).  Those who have been rescued tell everyone so that others might also become rescued.  I can feel my faith encouraged when I hear their testimonies and witnesses. 

However, everyone doesn’t realize their rescue.  I have to think that some believe it is their reward or fortune.  Maybe they think that somehow their reasoning to action is a part of it?  I don’t know.

Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off.  And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?  Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”  And He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.” – Luke 17:12-19

Maybe they think that somehow their reasoning to action is a part of their healing?  I don’t know.  Jesus said that “whoever denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” (Luke 12:9) And “whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26)

Some people will not believe you and might hate you for your faith.  They may only tell the tales of your greatest failures and never speak of your testimonies and witnesses of God’s very presence and kingdom in your life, but then that is how Jesus said we become a disciple.  We must be willing to be opposed and hated; we must be willing to let go of this world; we must be willing to fail as an imperfect person; and still know that there is only one true God and Jesus is our Savior.

Hard Knock Life

Before he left for school, Reed and I got everyone to watching and listening to the song and video of It’s a Hard Knock Life from the movie Austin Power’s Goldmember.  It’s really pretty goofy, but we thought it was funny.  If you think it has anything to do with the original Annie version, your expectations are way, way off.  Other than the title of the song, there is nothing similar.

The portion of the original song lyrics from Annie are:

It's a hard-knock life!
Don't it feel like the wind is always howlin?

Don't it seem like there's never any light?

What's a day you don't wanna throw the towel in?

It's easier than putting up a fight.
No one's there when your dreams at night are creepy!
No one cares if you grow or if you shrink!
No one dries when your eyes get wet and weepy

From the crying you would think this place would sink

Of particular interest to me is the line in the middle of the song that I underlined.  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt that before, sometimes daily, maybe even hourly.  There simply are times when we feel like we are beat up and tired and we just become unsure how we are going to keep going.    

Contrast that with this portion of lyrics from the song Eye of the Tiger from the movie Rocky III:

So many times it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive
It's the eye of the tiger
It's the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival

This song is all about fighting.  “Going the distance”, “rising up to the challenge”, “hanging tough”, “having guts”, “not going to stop”, and “surviving” are all phrases used in the song. 

These are two completely opposite views, but worldly experience tells me it is really hard to find that internal fight as described in Eye of the Tiger until you’ve experienced some of the reality of It’s a Hard Knock Life.  However, spiritual wisdom says that we have no ability to function in this world until we put the weight of our hard knocks into the right hands.  God says we are unequipped to carry the weights of our sinfulness or the sinfulness of others.  We simply can’t do this no matter how hard we try.  Jesus is equipped to carry them, He even asks for them, all we have to do is let them go.  Once we let them go and have faith that He can carry our concerns and anxieties we are then able to be healed.  The wounds in our heart can be stitched up and those holes where we have felt incomplete can be completed.  God is ready to put us together so we can be made whole through His binding of His Spirit with us.

This relates to hard knock’s and fighting because it defuses both of them.  Some people get very caught up in pride over how hard a life they’ve had and others get caught up in pride over how hard they’ve had to fight.  The truth is, both are incomplete unless they have given up and given everything to Jesus the Savior of humanity.  Life is only found in Him.  There is never another way.  God says:

Breathe because I give you breath.

Eat because I provide the bread.

Live because I give you life

And I will carry all your strife.

Go because I make a way.

Know because I spoke today.

Life is only found in Me

No matter what you think or see.

The song Breathe by Michael W. Smith is very reflective of this.  You can hear/watch it HERE.  Every moment we try to be defeated or we try to fight without God is a wasted moment in our life.  We live in moments of faith until they are connected and every moment is faith.  If there is any work to do regarding our hard knock’s or fight, it must be to connect every moment in faith.  That is the real fight.

Amazing Grace

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”

There’s a lot of theology in that song verse.  There’s also a lot of humanity in it.  But most of all, there’s truth in it.  I am a wretch.  I am a poor creature, a despicable and contemptible person, a criminal, a poor soul, a creep, and every low personal description that you can imagine.  I am profoundly unhappy and in great misfortune.  If I am left to myself and only myself, I will do the most deeply evil things. 

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. – Galatians 5:19-21

Everything described in that verse is something I am if I am left to myself.  All those works of the flesh will manifest themselves in me without God within me.  I am a wretched wretch.  The worst and best reality for us is when we realize what we are really.  No false fronts; fake impressions; wrongful descriptions; or hopeful blind perceptions.  We accept that what God says is true.  “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 54:6)  It is the worst because we don’t like to face the reality of what is truly inside of us.  It is the best because we see who God is and why we are destitute, a beggar with nothing, without Him.

“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)   

The glory of God is that His grace doesn’t accept that we exist without Him.  Even in our wretchedness, He comes to us, lifts us up, cleans us off, and offers an existence apart from the temporal flesh.  Through Him and Him alone we can “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and … run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).  We are no longer unclean; we are no longer a wretch; but “in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). 

It is an amazing grace.  What a pleasant sweet sound!  I do not deserve the focus, the attention, the personal love from a pure and holy God when I am so impure.  But what a sweet sound is His amazing grace that saves a wretch like me.  That grace is something I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to fully grasp or understand except in the very presence of God the Father and Jesus the Christ.  

Pursue His Presence

In the book, Pursuing the Will of God by Jack Hayford, he retells a story by Jean Firth.  John and Jean Firth were missionaries to Columbia starting around 1952.  They had endured severe persecution as they were not allowed to pass out tracks or advertise and were even stoned in the street (as told by The Vine and The Branches by Nathaniel Van Cleave).  However, they witnessed miraculously healing through prayers and that started a revival and the church grew by many thousands. 

Jean was on a very old plane flying over the Andes Mountains when the plane experienced very violent turbulence.  She was shaken, half-sick, and afraid for her life.  She quietly prayed to God that He would instruct the turbulence to be quiet just as He had told the sea to be still.  God answered that she should instruct it.  So she said, “In the name of Jesus I command you to be still.”  Instantly the turbulence stopped.  About 30 minutes later, the turbulence started again and it was just as violent.  She said again, “In the name of Jesus I command you to be still.”  But nothing happened.  Confused, she prayed to God again asking why the turbulence stopped the first time but not the second.  God answered her saying, the 2^nd time, you didn’t ask me to stop it.

Today I am reflecting upon this story and the author’s thoughts that we need to depend only upon God’s direction, leadership, and Words every day.  They must be new every morning.  What God did yesterday, how He delivered us, and where He led us may be completely different in how He delivers and leads us today.  We must turn to God first every single day so that we are following Him, not leading Him thinking we know how He’s going to answer our needs today.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Refrain:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conqu’rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Today, life may be asking you to give more than you want to give.  You may feel like you are slowly being drained of life every day taking care of the responsibilities God has given you or bearing a grief that has been laid upon you.  Maybe you feel like you are in a time of darkness and you just don’t know how, when, or if you’ll make it out.  Maybe you feel like nothing will ever just be normal again.  Do not fear.  God knows exactly where you are.  You are not lost or forgotten.  He is there.  Trust Him and ask Him to draw preciously closer so that you can feel and know His presence.  We are only complete in peace and full of love when we are in His presence.  Pursue Him this morning and rest in His hands.

Leaving Home

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” – Matthew 27:46

David, in an intense foreshadowing of Jesus in this moment on the cross wrote, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?  Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning?  O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent.” (Ps 22:1-2).  These are the words of a son to his father.

For the first time in my life, I get a very small glimpse or sense of what this must have felt like for God the Father.  I am mindful that there is no comparison to what God must have had to endure in this moment being the embodiment of perfect love.  This weekend we took our son to college and … left him there.  While there is difficulty in knowing that he isn’t in our home now, at least for the majority of time, and it hurts just not having him around because we like him, the deepest difficulty for me is knowing that there will be a time when he is lonely, maybe depressed, needing encouragement, wanting guidance, hurt, disappointed, rejected, angry, sad, or any other part of life where it helps to be surrounded by those that love you and we won’t be near to him or able to provide support.

There is parental pain, and rightfully so for responsible parents, in not being able to provide for and support your children.  So it is in this mindset that I weight how God the Father could be in the heart of His One and only Son, not just hear His cry, but feel the depth of His pain in His heart, and allow Him to hang there lonely, hurt, disappointed, and rejected.  Reason would tell us that a God who loved His Son would not allow Him to do that and would Himself intervene to keep Him from suffering so.  But that is man’s logic and it is incomplete.  God, who is Himself perfect love, allowed Him to suffer so that perfect love could be provided to His Son and to all who have the gift of life.

Understanding the pain in loss required for perfect love is difficult.  God the Father had to endure the loss of communion with His only Son for a time so that perfect love could be provided.  Not nearly the same, but we as parents bear our children leaving to go into the world to become who they must become.  We do not want them to leave but we know it is what is best for them, us, and the hopefully for society in general.  God had to not intervene in that moment of separation from His Son so that He could intervene for man.  There will never be a greater show of power in all that exists than what was on display in that time that Jesus spoke those Words.  Not only was it the power of love to save man, but it was the power to hold back His own Hand.

“But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel.  Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You delivered them.  They cried to You, and were delivered; they trusted in You, and were not ashamed.” – Ps 22:3-5

May we rest today in the absolute power of the love of God for us who was willing to hear and feel the cry of His only Son’s anguish and not act so that we might have a way to know Him and be saved from our iniquities.  May we rest in our work as parents to trust God for their protection and to provide people into their path to continue to show them Himself so they might grow in His presence.  We pray for our children and we pray for ourselves.  All our hope is in Jesus our Salvation and God our eternal Father forever.

The Mind Battle

Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.  So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.  For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. – Romans 8:5-7

These past few weeks I was in Hawaii.  I have always enjoyed being in Hawaii.  The vistas are always beautiful and are always changing.  At any time of day you can see a rainbow, rain falling in the distance, mountains and waves crashing on rocks or flowing into the beaches.  It was on this trip that I first saw white rain.  It was something I’ve never seen before.

But, overall it was a less than enjoyable trip, aside from when I was with my family.  I was surrounded by someone who was incredibly negative and complaining about everything.  They spiraled themselves into such that the beauty all around them was unobservable and even the unconscious observance of the creation around them was overcome.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Unfortunately, I had to spend time every morning, car rides to the work, car rides back from work, and evenings with them and that attitude and inability to just relax and take in the creation was too much for me to really enjoy being in such a grand environment.  I like this person, but this was just over the top.

However, this has caused me to look at daily life differently.  We live in a wonderful Creation daily and we live in the realm of the Spirit of God.  God tells us that He is always with us and Jesus tells us that His Spirit dwells within us.  Too often, we fail to see the beauty and rest in God’s own Spirit and we let the physical world ruin our attitude and overwhelm us.  How can that be except that we are focused on the wrong things?

³ If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. ⁴ Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.  ⁵ You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. – 2 Corinthians 4:3-5

Sometimes I think we let the world fool us into believing that we are perishing.  We begin to believe that we can’t have hope, that our circumstance can’t change, that we might be lost forever.  But may it not be so!  We as God’s elect have an eternal hope because Jesus the Christ is alive, now and forever!  Only a lack of faith believes that nothing will change.  We must never lack faith, but be stronger still until our dying day that there is nothing real in this world except for God Himself.  All else will fade away.  He holds us forever and we are never uncared for – He loves us with an everlasting love.

No matter what negative influences you might have today, look into the Spirit of God and see through and beyond them.  I pray that those yelling at us will drown out to the song of worship in our hearts seeking His presence.