Spirit & Trust

It was a beautiful fall morning. The sun shone, the birds sang, and things went smoothly at work. Then the phone rang.

When I heard the voice on the other end, followed by an unlovely attitude, my whole day took a turn. I spent the rest of the day struggling to focus on the tasks at hand, and my mind kept returning to those troublesome words.

When I clocked out for the day and started my car, I turned on the radio. As God’s timing is always perfect, the song playing was “I Raise a Hallelujah.” The louder I sang along with this song, the more joy and peace I felt.

As David said in Psalm 28:7, when we focus on the Lord and His faithfulness to help us instead of our problems, we will have a song of praise to offer our King. The more we sing praise to Him, the stronger our faith becomes.

If that perfectly timed song was not enough to lighten my load and boost my confidence, the next song to grace the airways was also about the power of praise.

When we shift our focus from ourselves, our problems, and others, and put it on the goodness of our Savior instead, we see things from a new perspective. We notice how small most of our problems are compared to His power. Our real Enemy flees as light overcomes the darkness. We can even be thankful for the people and circumstances that cause us to draw closer to the One who helps us.

Whatever situation you find yourself in today, whether your heart is heavy due to the actions of another or broken over the hardest of circumstances, turn on some music and lift your voice in praise. Soon, your spirit will be lifted, and your heart will be filled with joy. That’s the thing about praise.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and JESUS_is_our_HOPE.)

At twelve, my grandfather learned about straddling the fence. 

When my grandfather was in middle school, his father died. In a time when women mainly worked at home and the man was the sole breadwinner, the family was in a precarious situation. My grandfather was the only one who could take the reins among three brothers.

With the help of his Uncle Ransom, my grandfather got down from the fence and went to work. Taking care of a mother and several female siblings at such a young age wasn’t easy, but he knew what he had to do and did it. Quitting school meant he’d never secure a job that would pay very much. And it didn’t.

When he later quit farming, he worked at the Paradise Ice Company in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where he worked for the remainder of his career. Though his pay left much to be desired, again, he knew what he had to do and did it.

Elijah wasn’t a fence-straddler either. He summoned almost one thousand prophets and prophetesses of the pagan god Baal to the summit of Mount Carmel and challenged them to a contest to see which god was God. Before the contest began, he asked the people how long they would hesitate between two opinions . . . how long they would live with a divided mind.

Jesus once told people they couldn’t serve God and mammon. Mammon could be money or material possessions. But we can take anything and insert it in the place of mammon. We can’t choose God and Baal. Baal was a fertility god. Worshipping him allegedly brought prosperity and happiness. Our Baal can be anything that proposes to do the same thing.

God presents us with the same question as Elijah did to Baal’s representatives: “How long will you live with a divided mind?” We must choose God as well as the things that represent His nature. We can’t serve Him and other gods. Nor does He want half-hearted service from us after we choose to follow Him. He wants our undivided loyalty—not a divided mind.

Give God your all. He wants it—and deserves it. And when you choose to get off the fence, you’ll experience life as you never have before.

Some years ago, I met Jane and Jim, a long-married but childless couple. Sadly, though they’d often tried to adopt a baby, the arrangements failed each time, and their nursery remained unoccupied.

Like other couples at the time, they investigated adopting a child from overseas and were successful. They flew to a foreign city to meet their new daughter, Katie. Once there, however, they had more paperwork to complete. The adoption could not be finalized for a few weeks. So, they returned to the States and waited longer. I asked Jane how they were coping with the delay.

“I guess I’m optimistic,” she said. “The nursery’s been ready for a long time, but I closed the door. Now I keep the door open since Katie’s on her way.”

Shortly after, my friends did bring Katie home, and the nursery was no longer empty. When I wondered why Jane was so optimistic, I realized it was because she trusted those behind the adoption process.

Sometimes on my Christian journey, I also must wait for various reasons. Naturally, I begin to worry. I frequently ask, “What am I supposed to do now?”   

Paul had the best advice: wait patiently and trust the one controlling the wait and who will deliver the perfect outcome. After all, God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign creator of the universe.

When called to wait, trust God for the patience and the outcome.

(Photo courtesy of pixabay and josealbafotos.)

The fire took it all.

It started in one shed and quickly jumped to the one beside it. We watched in horror as years’ worth of earthly possessions went up in smoke. Tools. Furniture. Clothes. Antiques. Fall and Christmas decorations. And so much more.

A large portion of our backyard was left in black, sooty ruins. The next day we began picking through the rubble, hoping to find something salvageable. The only thing we found intact was a Bible, barely even singed.

For many days afterward, we lived with the devastation—a constant reminder of what had taken place. It was hard to look at the mess without tears, thinking of what we had lost and wondering if our backyard would ever return to normal.

The clean-up crew came. They loaded up the debris and hauled it away. Then another crew came and cut down over a dozen burned trees. They also ground the stumps. Once again, the debris was loaded up and taken away, leaving the ground smooth and free of any signs of that dreadful fire. With two new sheds in place, it now looks even better than before, as though the fire never happened.

That’s what happens when God forgives our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He removes all the clutter and debris from our heart and tosses it into the sea of forgetfulness. He washes us, as the Bible says, “white as snow.” He gives us beauty instead of ashes. He turns our mourning into joy and clothes us with a garment of praise. He makes all things new.

That Bible survived a terrible fire when nothing else did. The Word of the living God. Alive and sharper than a two-edged sword. Powerful and eternal. It proved to be a constant reminder of how blessed we were—blessed that no one was hurt and that the fire did not come near our home, the woods behind our home, our chickens, or our motorhome (parked beside the second shed). Things could have turned out so much worse, but God was faithful and merciful.

When life comes at you, leaving a mess in its wake, don’t lose hope. You can always count on God and His Word to remove the debris and make things even better than before.

(photo courtesy of author)

Amy Carmichael could have doubted that God’s favor wrapped around her, but she didn’t. After a terrible fall broke her body, she was pretty much bedridden in her mission in India. Nonetheless, she recognized God’s presence and blessing amid her painful limitation, for others were obliged to rise and shoulder the responsibilities of her orphanage and outreach. Furthermore, her passion drove her to write, and those writings kindled a missionary movement.

I love to pray for God’s favor to surround and bless people as the psalmist does. It fills me with joy and well-being. However, if we look at the context of the psalms, we discover that favor is preceded by many days of being afflicted by God, followed by the psalmist’s request that God reveal His splendor to His servants and their children. Amy was afflicted before receiving God’s favor, the favor that established the work of her hands. Affliction before favor is a pattern in Scripture.

Sometimes, what distracts us, what is worthless, needs to be utterly removed before we can see the splendor of the Almighty. Then what is favored by God can rise. The Israelites experienced this in the desert as God weeded their stubborn unbelief. God had gifted the people of Canaan four hundred years to repent before God removed the worthless ruin of their culture and raised up His blessing with righteous guidelines.

We want God’s favor—for Him to confirm and bless the work of our hands. Invite Him to remove what is worthless from your life so He can bring forth what He favors.

(Photo courtesy of morguefile and jeltovski.)