Tag: endure

The Difference Between Doing and Living

Have you ever been so tired that no matter how hard you tried you just couldn’t hold your eyes open and you were not somewhere you wanted to be caught sleeping?  On one particular day during my junior year of high school I was sitting at one of the long science tables in physics class trying very unsuccessfully to stay awake.  Mr. W. was a great teacher who entertained his classes with hilarious stories, but he spoke very monotone and the steady tone of his voice worked on me just like a lullaby does to a baby.  I don’t remember who had the pleasure of waking me up that day, but I will never forget being startled awake and feeling so embarrassed.  I felt like the focal point for the entire class whether they were paying attention or not.

If you follow my blog or happened to read my last post, you may remember that it was about the individual person being distracted by the things going on in his or her life and the distractions found on the news or social media.  In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13, verses 32 through 33 Jesus says, “No one knows the day or hour when these things [His return] will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.  And since you don’t know when they will happen, stay alert and keep watch.”

I don’t want to be embarrassed again by falling asleep somewhere I shouldn’t, but the thought of Jesus catching me asleep when I am supposed to be a living example of His love is… I don’t even have words to describe how horrible that would be.  There have been many times in my life during which I have watched for His return and there are other times when I have allowed distractions to take His place as my focal point.  I have recently realized that during some of the times I thought I was being watchful for Him I was actually being distracted by what I thought was His service.  I was doing the “right things” as I understood those things in Scripture, but I wasn’t really living those right things in the right way.  What if I’m not the only one?  What if Jesus comes back and finds not only me sleeping but whole congregations sleeping as well?  What can slip past the sleeping congregations and sit right down on the pew beside each member?

The book of Revelations, chapters two and three consist of letters dictated by Jesus to the churches of Biblical times and they tell us exactly what can happen when the congregation is sleeping.  The first letter is written to the church in Ephesus and should be a wake-up call to churches today.  “I know all the things you do.  I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance.  I know you don’t tolerate evil people…  But I have this complaint against you.  You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Look how far you have fallen from your first love!  Turn back to me again and work as you did at first.”  In His letter to the church in Sardis Jesus said, “I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive – but you are dead.  Now wake up!  Strengthen what little remains for even what is left is at the point of death.”

The accusations against these churches were written in letters to those congregations, but they were included in Scripture for a reason.  God doesn’t simply want us to know what He said to these churches that have been gone for centuries.  He wants us to realize He is talking to the churches of today, too – my church, your church, the church around the corner and the church across town.

The churches of today need to wake up and open their eyes to the things going on around them and even within their own congregations.  In His letter to the church in Thyatica Jesus speaks of a woman, Jezebel, doing and encouraging sin within the church.  All churches have a Jezebel at some point in time.  Most churches have a Jezebel right now whether they realize it or not.  Jezebel could open the church up to many things such as gossip, lies, theft, or even drugs, sexual immorality or idolatry and false teaching.  The important thing with all church Jezebels is that the church handle the situation Scripturally.  Is she allowed to continue her behavior while various people pray for her to change?  Is she spoken to about her behavior but allowed to continue with it?  Is her behavior addressed according to the instructions presented in Scripture?  There may be times in the life of the church that His children look around themselves with concern and fear because their Jezebel seems so strong or out of control, but rest assured God will not allow Jezebel to continue forever.  In His letter to the church of Thyatira Jesus warns, “I gave her time to repent, but she would not turn away from her immorality.  Therefore, I will throw her upon a sickbed, and she will suffer greatly with all who commit adultery with her, unless they turn away from all their evil deeds.  I will strike her children dead.  And all the churches will know that I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person.  And I will give each of you whatever you deserve….”  I’m not sure how you feel about that part of His letter, but I find it a little scary for the church.  Jezebel’s children are not necessarily the ones she has physically given birth to.  They could just as easily be other members of the church family who have become actively or passively involved in her behavior.

Jesus always leaves us with hope, however, such as the promise in his letter to the church in Philadelphia.  “I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that no one can shut.  You have little strength, yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me.  Look!  I will force those who belong to Satan [including Jezebel and her children] – those liars who say they are Jews [children of God] but are not – to come and bow down at your feet.  They will acknowledge that you are the ones I love.  Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world.” What an awesome promise!

This post jumps around a bit in topic, but it can be applied to both the individual person and the church body. Stop doing the right things because they are the right things to do; and start living, really living the right way. Would you rather stand before Jesus at His judgement seat and hear Him say you obeyed Him, or would you rather hear Him say you lived your life in a way that other people saw Him through you? The choice is yours.

Stop Trying to Understand

“I just don’t understand how they could do this to me.” I have heard this said so many times over the years and recently have said it myself several times. When someone you have loved for many years decides to act in a way that destroys the relationship you have with him or her, the pain you feel can overwhelm you and trigger a multitude of feelings and questions. You may feel like I recently did: stuck in a pit of quicksand, slipping a little deeper every time I tried to answer another “how could he” question. As much as I would like to know the answers to each of the questions I think of, I have decided it may be best if I don’t understand them and can never answer them. Isaiah 55:3,6-9 says, “Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life….Seek the Lord while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near. Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the Lord that he may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for he will forgive generously. ‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts….'” Nowhere in this passage does God instruct us to study so we may understand the thoughts and actions of other people. Nowhere does He say we will understand what other people do or why they do it. What He does tell us is that we need to listen to Him and study His ways. The more we understand God’s ways, the less we will understand the ways of man including the men or women who hurt us. Stop trying to understand how someone you love could do something that hurts you deeply. If you understand it, you are capable of doing it yourself. You are almost always better off not understanding it and not being capable of it. This is almost always the only way out of the quicksand. 

New Happiness Despite Old Circumstances

If someone had told me a year ago that I would be where I am today, I would have told them they were crazy. Not only would I have never allowed things to spin this far out of control, I would never have been able to survive as things are now.

If someone had told me six months ago that everything that my life was would be gone in three months, I would have told them they were as wrong as wrong could be.

If someone had told me three months ago that I would soon be happier than I had been in over two decades, I would have told them they had no idea what they were talking about and obviously didn’t know me very well. At that time I was too devestated to really, truly function or see any possibility of happiness in my future.

Guess what. In each of these instances I would have been the one who was wrong. When I look back on the multitude of major changes that have taken place during this difficult time in my life, I visualize a big box that my life was carefully packed away in. Some of my life was packed neatly and organized and some was simply thrown into the box with the rest. Regardless of how or when it was placed in the box, each item was very valuable to me. Once my whole life was packed away to keep it safe, someone snatched the box from the place l had hidden it for safety.  They flipped it upside down and shook until the entire box, my life, was empty, handed that empty box to me, stomped on much of the contents and then smugly walked away.

I felt lost at first, frozen and unable to think. After some time had passed, I knelt down on the floor and began to try to put everything back in the box, but the box seemed much smaller now. After a while I realized that the broken pieces of my life wouldn’t fit in the box any more. I had a difficult time fitting everything in the box before it was dumped and was now faced with the task of trying to shove every broken piece, big or small, into a space never made to hold so much. It couldn’t be done.

With tears flowing down my face, I removed each broken piece of my life and spread them neatly around the floor beside the box. I gazed upon them and mourned my losses. How could I continue without these pieces of my life whether they were whole or broken? I tried desperately to find a way to glue the shattered pieces back together. I insisted I would succeed, but after a while I realized I was lying to myself. No amount of glue or tape could ever fix these shattered pieces and make them whole again, and they could not fit back into the box I held no matter how I tried. I didn’t know what to do.

I knew I couldn’t go on without these pieces but they couldn’t be fixed. I cried and I cried…a lot, and then I began to pack the unbroken items back into the box. Even these unbroken pieces were marred in some way by scratches, bruises, dents or cracks, but they were still intact despite their scars. As I placed the last of the unbroken pieces of my life into the box, I saw something through the tears welled up in my eyes. My box was full and not because it was smaller. My box had grown in size and the scarred but unbroken pieces of my life that now resided in this box had grown, too. 

The box I packed my life into was completely full and it no longer seemed like anything was missing. The shattered pieces on the floor around me were no longer important. I had thought for over two decades that each item I had packed away was extremely important and irreplaceable. I had packed each of my precious “belongings” away to protect them, but all that I had really accomplished was to hold on to them for two decades longer than God wanted me to. These things had no real value and actually lowered the value of the other pieces of my life.

My life outside of my imaginary box has changed considerably. Some of the changes were painful to live through but each and every one of them was needed and has brought me to a new place in my life…a new place where I feel respected, wanted and loved.

Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

I thought I would not survive the complete change my life has been through; but, as it says in Isaiah 43:2, I did not drown or burn. I made it and I am happy for the first time in many, many years.

Fear

What is the one thing you fear more than anything else? You fear this thing so much that you don’t even want to put words to it, to speak it aloud. Now picture that thing in your mind. Picture it clearly and vividly. How does it make you feel to visualize it? What other feelings accompany the fear you feel when you force your mind to visualize this dreaded image…anxiety, pain, sadness, guilt, anger, hate?

I rarely watch the local, national or world news any more.  Occasionally, a news program may share a story of heroism, generosity, or compassion; but, more often than not, listening to any news program triggers sadness and fear.  ISIS, Boko Haram, Iran, bombings, religious mass murder, shootings, kidnappings, plane crashes and disappearances, storms, rapes, pestilence, drought, famine, economic recession, and a list that can go on forever. These are the stories we hear in vivid details that no one in their right mind wants to visualize. This is the world we live in. This is the world left to us by our parents, and this is the world our children will inherit from us.

Did our parents teach us to fear? Are we teaching our children to fear? As terrible as world events have become, as paralyzing as personal tragedies can be, we all have the ability and responsibility to keep living, keep loving, keep going, and to teach our children the same. Most importantly, we need to teach our children to be happy as they are. Matthew 6:25-27 quotes Jesus instruction to us about fear.  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who among you by worrying can add a single day to his life.”

It may appear like everything in the world is spiraling out of control and we may fear that our own lives will be touched by some tragic event, but we should never allow our minds to dwell upon these possibilities. Anything could happen at any time. No amount of fear will truly remove the possibility that something tragic may happen in your life. Choose to let go of your fear. Choose to live today focusing on today rather than to live today by allowing your fear to focus on a possible event that may never happen.

“I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.  Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.  Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights (Habakkuk 3:16-19).”

Giving Your Present Trial to the Only One Who Matters

As stressful as life can become, as scary as change can be, as painful as heartbreak can feel, God can and will get you through whatever you are facing if you will only let go of your troubles and pain, grab hold of His hand and let Him lead you. He can and WILL rescue you. That doesn’t mean things will always change for the better right here right now, but it does mean He WILL get you through it in this life or the next. He is all any of us need.

Psalm 138:
(1) I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise.
(2) I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.
(3) When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted.
(4) May all the kings of the earth praise you, O Lord, when they hear the words of your mouth.
(5) May they sing of the ways of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord is great.
(6) Though the Lord is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar.
(7) Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with your right hand you save me.
(8) The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endures forever – do not abandon the works of your hands.