It is easy to love Him
when the blue is in the sky,
When the summer winds are blowing,
and we smell the roses nigh;
There is little effort needed
to obey His precious will
When it leads through flower-decked valley
or over sun-kissed hill.
It's when the rain is falling
or the mist hangs in the air,
When the road is dark and rugged
and the wind no longer fair,
When the rosy dawn has settled
in a shadowland of gray
That we find it hard to trust Him
and are slower to obey.
It is easy to trust Him
when the singing birds have come,
And their songs of praise are echoed
in our hearts and in our homes;
But it's when when we miss the music
and the days are dull and drear',
That we need a faith triumphant
over every doubt and fear.
And our blessed lord will give it;
what we lack He will supply;
Let us ask in faith believing -
on His promises rely;
He will ever be our leader,
whether smooth or rough the way,
And will prove Himself sufficient
for the needs of every day.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
This Is My Back Yard
In my own back yard is Pebble Beach, California. Back yard is a bit of a stretch, as if I could ever afford to live there. But it is near where I park at night and I do have access to its beauties. It's name speaks of one of its treasures, beautiful polished stones that can be found along the shore. Raging white surf churns almost continuously, thundering and pounding against the rocks on the shore.
These stones are trapped in the arms of merciless waves. They are tossed, rolled, tumbled, ground and rubbed together against a jagged cliff. This process of grinding and polishing continues relentlessly, day and night.
The result is highly prized, beautiful stones that tourists from around the world seek to take home. They are collected and displayed, coveted by many who see them. Yet just up the coast, around the next point of land is a quiet, protected cove. Tranquil and protected from the storms, its sand is covered with an abundance of similar pebbles not sought after by visitors.
Why have these stones been left untouched through the years? Simply because they have escaped all the turmoil and grinding by the elements. The quietness and peace have left them as they always were - rough, unpolished, lacking in value - for polish is the result of difficulties.
These stones are trapped in the arms of merciless waves. They are tossed, rolled, tumbled, ground and rubbed together against a jagged cliff. This process of grinding and polishing continues relentlessly, day and night.
The result is highly prized, beautiful stones that tourists from around the world seek to take home. They are collected and displayed, coveted by many who see them. Yet just up the coast, around the next point of land is a quiet, protected cove. Tranquil and protected from the storms, its sand is covered with an abundance of similar pebbles not sought after by visitors.
Why have these stones been left untouched through the years? Simply because they have escaped all the turmoil and grinding by the elements. The quietness and peace have left them as they always were - rough, unpolished, lacking in value - for polish is the result of difficulties.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Reason Most People Are Bad...
is because they don't try to be good. - L. Frank Baum
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even faith. (1 John 5:4)
Sobriety asks that I keep walking into life. Recovery is exactly that, the recovery of life and purpose. The life and purpose I would choose to recover are no longer available to meb. Walking into life feels more like groping my way in the dark now. To be sure, I am not alone. God is present but keeping to Himself lately. And as I grope in inky blackness I have found it to be a maze of walls and no doors. To keep things interesting, the occasional step is encountered, just enough to cause a trip or stumble, but no falls.
With so much time to feel my way through I realize I have come up on 18 months sobriety. The "gift of sobriety" it is regularly called. But the gift is not bringing the joy I have sometimes felt. I am struggling with the gift concept. I'd like to exchange it for some happiness, or an apartment and a job, maybe for the medications I have run out of and cannot afford to buy, or a tune-up on my truck.
Gifts should be practical, not abstract, but they might be both I guess. A hot shower, for example. An abstract concept as a gift, unless you have limited access to a facility, then it becomes practical. But I stay with the concept that gifts should have some practical use.
I am struggling with sobriety. I am not seeing the promises come true in my life, unless the Big Book excerpt "we are going to know a new freedom..." is considered. That's about it. Freedom may well be anther expression for "nothing left to lose."
But trusting in the Giver of all good things, even when it appears I have been forsaken; praying, even when it seems my words simply vanish in a vast expanse where no one answers; believing that Gods love is complete and that He is aware of my circumstances and cries with me; desiring only what God's hand has planned for me while seemingly starving to death; and my greatest fear being that my faith will ultimately fail - "this is the victory that has overcome the world."
This is the victory that has overcome the world, even faith. (1 John 5:4)
Sobriety asks that I keep walking into life. Recovery is exactly that, the recovery of life and purpose. The life and purpose I would choose to recover are no longer available to meb. Walking into life feels more like groping my way in the dark now. To be sure, I am not alone. God is present but keeping to Himself lately. And as I grope in inky blackness I have found it to be a maze of walls and no doors. To keep things interesting, the occasional step is encountered, just enough to cause a trip or stumble, but no falls.
With so much time to feel my way through I realize I have come up on 18 months sobriety. The "gift of sobriety" it is regularly called. But the gift is not bringing the joy I have sometimes felt. I am struggling with the gift concept. I'd like to exchange it for some happiness, or an apartment and a job, maybe for the medications I have run out of and cannot afford to buy, or a tune-up on my truck.
Gifts should be practical, not abstract, but they might be both I guess. A hot shower, for example. An abstract concept as a gift, unless you have limited access to a facility, then it becomes practical. But I stay with the concept that gifts should have some practical use.
I am struggling with sobriety. I am not seeing the promises come true in my life, unless the Big Book excerpt "we are going to know a new freedom..." is considered. That's about it. Freedom may well be anther expression for "nothing left to lose."
But trusting in the Giver of all good things, even when it appears I have been forsaken; praying, even when it seems my words simply vanish in a vast expanse where no one answers; believing that Gods love is complete and that He is aware of my circumstances and cries with me; desiring only what God's hand has planned for me while seemingly starving to death; and my greatest fear being that my faith will ultimately fail - "this is the victory that has overcome the world."
Monday, July 12, 2010
Because I Said So
Wow. I so hated that response from my parents. My repeated badgering of "But why?" and "Why can't I....?" coupled with my unwillingness to accept their answers would ultimately bring on the "Because I said so!" Experience taught me to cease my pestering immediately when that point was reached. Persistence beyond that moment would bring a painful swat.
Much of what God reveals to me in my prayer and meditation seems to take that form when I ask, "Why?" I have come to the conclusion that He does things that way in order to increase my actions based on absolute faith. He hasn't swatted me yet, but He has allowed me to suffer consequences for mis-behavior.
"What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy." (Rom 9:23) Paul's reference precedes a reference to Hosea 1:9, "for you are not my people, and I am not your God." God's people had turned their backs on Him in all but name during Hosea's ministry. Not a lot different than many today. And God was angry and hurt by His people's pursuit of idols - adultery, possessions, materialism.
Yet God cannot deny His love for His chosen and offered hope for the repentance of Israel. "I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert... There I will give her back her vineyards." (Hosea 2:14-15)
The desert is a strange place to find vineyards. Can it be true that the riches of life that we need can be found in the desert - a place that symbolizes loneliness, and from which we can seldom find our way out unaided?
Yes, God knows our need for a desert experience. He knows exactly where and how to produce enduring qualities in each of us. It may mean the stripping away of earthly riches, imprisonment, the removal of support systems, persistent feelings of confusion or abandonment - His pruning of our lives may take dozens of forms.
The person who has been idolatrous, has been rebellious, has forgotten God's words, has said with total self-will, "I will go after my lovers" (Hosea 2:5), will find their path blocked by God. To be certain, the strong-willed will find a way around Him, but when the feelings of hopelessness and abandonment set in, God will say, "I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." (Hosea 2:14)
God has lead me into some hard, difficult and lonely places, and it has been there that I realize I am where eternal streams wash over me.
Much of what God reveals to me in my prayer and meditation seems to take that form when I ask, "Why?" I have come to the conclusion that He does things that way in order to increase my actions based on absolute faith. He hasn't swatted me yet, but He has allowed me to suffer consequences for mis-behavior.
"What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy." (Rom 9:23) Paul's reference precedes a reference to Hosea 1:9, "for you are not my people, and I am not your God." God's people had turned their backs on Him in all but name during Hosea's ministry. Not a lot different than many today. And God was angry and hurt by His people's pursuit of idols - adultery, possessions, materialism.
Yet God cannot deny His love for His chosen and offered hope for the repentance of Israel. "I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert... There I will give her back her vineyards." (Hosea 2:14-15)
The desert is a strange place to find vineyards. Can it be true that the riches of life that we need can be found in the desert - a place that symbolizes loneliness, and from which we can seldom find our way out unaided?
Yes, God knows our need for a desert experience. He knows exactly where and how to produce enduring qualities in each of us. It may mean the stripping away of earthly riches, imprisonment, the removal of support systems, persistent feelings of confusion or abandonment - His pruning of our lives may take dozens of forms.
The person who has been idolatrous, has been rebellious, has forgotten God's words, has said with total self-will, "I will go after my lovers" (Hosea 2:5), will find their path blocked by God. To be certain, the strong-willed will find a way around Him, but when the feelings of hopelessness and abandonment set in, God will say, "I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." (Hosea 2:14)
God has lead me into some hard, difficult and lonely places, and it has been there that I realize I am where eternal streams wash over me.
Convicted by My Lack of Convictions
"There before me was a door standing open in heaven." (Rev 4:1)
I need to remember that John wrote these words while on the island of Patmos. He was there "because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Rev 1:9). He had been banished to the island, an isolated, rocky, inhospitable prison.
Yet it was there, under difficult circumstances - separated from all of his loved ones in Ephasus, excluded from worshiping with the church, and condemned to only the companionship of unpleasant fellow captives - that he was granted the special privilege of a vision of heaven. It was as a prisoner that he saw "a door standing open in heaven."
I should also remember Jacob, who laid down in the desert to sleep after leaving his fathers house. "He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and... above it stood the Lord." (Gen 28:12-13)
The doors of heaven have been opened for many others and in the word's estimation it seems as if their circumstances were utterly unlikely to merit such revelations. Yet how often do we hear of "a door standing open in heaven" for prisoners and captives? Many who suffer from chronic illness, or who are bound with chains of pain to a bed of suffering report immense joys received in their lives. Many who wander the earth in lonely isolation, or who are kept from the Lord's house by demands placed on them by others receive a glimpse of paradise.
But there are conditions to seeing the open door. I must first learn what it is to be "in the spirit" (Rev 1:10). I must be "pure in heart" (Matt 5:8) and obedient in faith. I must be willing to "consider everything a loss compared t the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:8) Then, once God is everything to me, so that "in Him [I] live and move and have [my] being" (Acts 17:28), the door to heaven will stand open to me as well.
I need to remember that John wrote these words while on the island of Patmos. He was there "because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Rev 1:9). He had been banished to the island, an isolated, rocky, inhospitable prison.
Yet it was there, under difficult circumstances - separated from all of his loved ones in Ephasus, excluded from worshiping with the church, and condemned to only the companionship of unpleasant fellow captives - that he was granted the special privilege of a vision of heaven. It was as a prisoner that he saw "a door standing open in heaven."
I should also remember Jacob, who laid down in the desert to sleep after leaving his fathers house. "He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and... above it stood the Lord." (Gen 28:12-13)
The doors of heaven have been opened for many others and in the word's estimation it seems as if their circumstances were utterly unlikely to merit such revelations. Yet how often do we hear of "a door standing open in heaven" for prisoners and captives? Many who suffer from chronic illness, or who are bound with chains of pain to a bed of suffering report immense joys received in their lives. Many who wander the earth in lonely isolation, or who are kept from the Lord's house by demands placed on them by others receive a glimpse of paradise.
But there are conditions to seeing the open door. I must first learn what it is to be "in the spirit" (Rev 1:10). I must be "pure in heart" (Matt 5:8) and obedient in faith. I must be willing to "consider everything a loss compared t the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:8) Then, once God is everything to me, so that "in Him [I] live and move and have [my] being" (Acts 17:28), the door to heaven will stand open to me as well.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Hope Is a Most Terrible Thing
This sounds contradictory to much of what I write about. And it is. It has been some time since I posted any new ramblings or rants. While I have been writing (some of those I will post at a later date) it has been a time of processing for me and allowing myself to heal physically and emotionally.
In the midst of my battle with cancer my ex-wife came back into my life for a period of time. I still love her so. Always have. Always will. Against my own better judgement, I allowed her to begin to work her way back into my heart. You see, I had learned in the past year that I could still love her yet not allow her a place in my life. I allowed hope to build in my much damaged spirit, hope that we could rebuild our marriage.
I was led to believe that that we had time to work on the healing. We spent time together, God honoring time. I tried with my limited resources (other than time, of which I have plenty) to befriend her, as she did me. We even went to look at an apartment she wanted to rent. I allowed her individual time and her space to process her own losses of recent months. I understand emotional pain, especially the type of pain that stems from individual decisions.
But I realized too late that I had been mis-led. I realized too late that once again my emotions had been entangled in a relationship over which I had no influence or power of choice. I realized too late that the woman who plucks the strings of my heart had not been honest with me about the relationship she never really left. It turns out that I was the only one who had been left.
Why does God allow me to have hope, especially when He knows there is no basis for that hope? Why does He allow hope when there is no possibility of those hopes being met? And if hope is to be allowed, why does He allow it to hurt so deeply when I am crushed?
I have only myself to blame for this pain I must again endure. You see, my pain is self inflicted. I placed my hope in another human being. As long as my hope rests in anyone who occupies this world I am setting myself up for failure. And with failure comes pain.
I truly believe God's word is the truth and still the ultimate authority in today's world. I believe God wanted me to see that He has other plans for me. My wishes for me are not what He considers of primary importance. His wishes for me are of primary importance to Him and to me and I must learn to place my hope in Him and Him alone.
In the midst of my battle with cancer my ex-wife came back into my life for a period of time. I still love her so. Always have. Always will. Against my own better judgement, I allowed her to begin to work her way back into my heart. You see, I had learned in the past year that I could still love her yet not allow her a place in my life. I allowed hope to build in my much damaged spirit, hope that we could rebuild our marriage.
I was led to believe that that we had time to work on the healing. We spent time together, God honoring time. I tried with my limited resources (other than time, of which I have plenty) to befriend her, as she did me. We even went to look at an apartment she wanted to rent. I allowed her individual time and her space to process her own losses of recent months. I understand emotional pain, especially the type of pain that stems from individual decisions.
But I realized too late that I had been mis-led. I realized too late that once again my emotions had been entangled in a relationship over which I had no influence or power of choice. I realized too late that the woman who plucks the strings of my heart had not been honest with me about the relationship she never really left. It turns out that I was the only one who had been left.
Why does God allow me to have hope, especially when He knows there is no basis for that hope? Why does He allow hope when there is no possibility of those hopes being met? And if hope is to be allowed, why does He allow it to hurt so deeply when I am crushed?
I have only myself to blame for this pain I must again endure. You see, my pain is self inflicted. I placed my hope in another human being. As long as my hope rests in anyone who occupies this world I am setting myself up for failure. And with failure comes pain.
I truly believe God's word is the truth and still the ultimate authority in today's world. I believe God wanted me to see that He has other plans for me. My wishes for me are not what He considers of primary importance. His wishes for me are of primary importance to Him and to me and I must learn to place my hope in Him and Him alone.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Faith Honors God/God Honors Faith
Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:31-32
Dear believer, remember to take good care of your faith, for faith is the only way to obtain God's blessings. Prayer alone cannot bring answers down from His throne. It is the earnest prayer of the faithful that leads to answers.
Faith is the communication link on which prayer travels. It is only by this link that prayer travels. It is by this link that God's message of love and answers to prayers move, so quickly that even before we ask, while we are still speaking, "he hears us." (1 John 5:14) So if the connection of faith is severed, how will we obtain His promises? We can't!
"The promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all" (Rom 4:16). Even grace is denied to those who lack faith. Why is that? To profess belief in something, yet have no faith in it, is not true belief. If I believe in electricity and never turn on the switch do I have belief or faith in it? Or am I just paying lip-service to a concept?
If I claim belief in God, yet do not trust Him enough to follow His commands, I have no real faith. Faith is the action that demonstrates my belief. Faith is the following of that "still small voice" that guides me - or attempts to guide me. Faith is choosing the path that honors God even when conventional wisdom says otherwise. Faith allows me to say to those I know to be false, those who choose to accept the comforts of this world as their reward, those who urge me to follow their way, "'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" (Matt 7:23)
In writing his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul chose his words carefully and ordered them specifically. "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love." (1 Cor 13:13) Faith gives birth to hope, and from there arises true love.
Dear believer, remember to take good care of your faith, for faith is the only way to obtain God's blessings. Prayer alone cannot bring answers down from His throne. It is the earnest prayer of the faithful that leads to answers.
Faith is the communication link on which prayer travels. It is only by this link that prayer travels. It is by this link that God's message of love and answers to prayers move, so quickly that even before we ask, while we are still speaking, "he hears us." (1 John 5:14) So if the connection of faith is severed, how will we obtain His promises? We can't!
"The promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all" (Rom 4:16). Even grace is denied to those who lack faith. Why is that? To profess belief in something, yet have no faith in it, is not true belief. If I believe in electricity and never turn on the switch do I have belief or faith in it? Or am I just paying lip-service to a concept?
If I claim belief in God, yet do not trust Him enough to follow His commands, I have no real faith. Faith is the action that demonstrates my belief. Faith is the following of that "still small voice" that guides me - or attempts to guide me. Faith is choosing the path that honors God even when conventional wisdom says otherwise. Faith allows me to say to those I know to be false, those who choose to accept the comforts of this world as their reward, those who urge me to follow their way, "'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" (Matt 7:23)
In writing his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul chose his words carefully and ordered them specifically. "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love." (1 Cor 13:13) Faith gives birth to hope, and from there arises true love.
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