God Arises

God arises. His enemies scatter, and those who hate Him flee from His presence.

-Psalm 68:1

Do you see God arising?  We pray, “God arises!”, as a declarative prayer.  He is arising, and we bless what we see the Father doing (John 5:19) just like Jesus.

“God arises”, is a statement of truth; like saying, “God is on the move”.  We are not petitioning God to come, but we see that he is already here.  We are announcing that God is here, so that we can do something.

We see and do.  We do not just see and enjoy the sight, nor do we just see and learn, all in the thinking realm.  Real learning is in the participation.

I declare, “God arises”.  Do you see?  I will help you see if you do not see God arising.

Can you see, can you hear, and can you sense God arising?   If so, what do we do?

When we see God arising, we:

1. Repent.  Jesus message was not to accept him into your heart as your personal savior.  Jesus message was not to believe in the cross and what he did (would do) there.  Jesus message was, “Repent: for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”.  To repent means to change, to change your mind, to change your purpose, to change your direction.  God does not give a catalog of sins we should stop doing, because ‘sin management’ has never been the message or God’s way.  Repent also means ‘reform’: Reform or die.  You must change and re-purpose your life or you will die: you are signing off on your death notice.  Many people are the living dead, because they refuse to repent when the call to do so has been given clearly.
2. Get out of the way.  There is a dance that reverences participating with God and in God, without ever taking God’s place of headship.  Jesus modeled how to be submissive to Father’s lead and rely upon the power of the Spirit.  He is the model for how to live and the only way to live.
3. Join in on what God is doing.  We get to participate with God in what God is doing in the earth.  We are co-missioned into God’s mission.  He calls us child, friend, and slave; and we get to learn how to enjoy life in those three roles or dimensions with God.  Jesus gives us authority and we need to know what it is and how it works and our responsibilities for and how we use our authority.

When God arises he gets himself between you and his enemies.  When God comes into a situation his enemies are exposed and must flee.  Selfishness and sinfulness in people will not stand or live in God’s presence either.

Every person that Jesus encountered, during his years of ministry, after he left the family’s business; had issues that came up, that Jesus had a word for, a key to help then unravel from selfishness, hopelessness, delusions, or misconceptions.  This same Jesus who preached the general “Repent!” message to all, had helpful counsel and instructions for individuals.  So, God calls us all to repent and he also has compassionate, loving, care filled counsel and instruction for us as individuals.

When God arises we do not want to delude ourselves to think, “God is on our side”.  It does not work that way, because “Repent” means that we all surrender to being on God’s side, realizing that God is the king and we are all his subjects.  Some people have not realized this or taken action to bow to the king yet.

If you have surrendered and have become a subject and child of the king, it means you are in the kingdom and under and on the side of the king.  The only other side is the side of God’s enemies.  People are either with God or with God’s enemies, even if they don’t know it.  When God arises, the enemy is exposed and must flee and the peoples who are not in the kingdom, under the king, but have been captives in the enemy’s kingdom, get to be delivered or set free.

And when God comes, people get to choose if they are in or out, get free and become king’s kids, or stay in bondage.

I declare, let God rise up!  God arises!  Up with God!

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-This post was previously published on 8/2/16

Notes on Suffering From Job, By Chambers & Peterson

Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will leave this life.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything.

-Job 1:20-22

This is a follow-up on why we can not and should not try to fix people.  (You Can’t Fix People)  There is a whole book on this in the Bible, called Job.  It is the story of a good guy who had bad things happen to him.

Here are notes and quotes, full of sage advice and Christ centered wisdom about how to approach suffering, from first Oswald Chambers, then Eugene Peterson.

These are some notes or quotes from Oswald Chambers book on Job called, Baffled To Fight Better.

• The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold.
• It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence.
• (A) man may utter apparently blasphemous things against God and we say, “How appalling”; but if we look further we find that the man is in pain, he is maddened and hurt by something. The mood he is talking in is a passing one and out of his suffering will come a totally different relationship to things. Remember, that in the end God said that the friends had not spoken the truth about Him, while Job had. 
• All we can know about God is that His character is what Jesus Christ has manifested; and all we know about our fellow men presents an enigma which precludes the possibility of the final judgment being with us.
• The pseudo-evangelical line is that you must be on the watch all the time and lose no opportunity of speaking to people, and this attitude is apt to produce the superior person. It may be a noble enough point of view, but it produces the wrong kind of character. It does not produce a disciple of Jesus, but too often it produces the kind of person who smells of gunpowder and people are afraid of meeting him. According to Jesus Christ, what we have to do is to watch the source and He will look after the outflow: “He that believeth on me,…out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).
• There are things in our heavenly Father’s dealings with us which have no immediate explanation.
• There are inexplicable providences which test us to the limit and prove that rationalism is a mere mental pose. 
•  The Bible and our common sense agree that the basis of human life is tragic, not rational, and the whole problem for us is focused on this (in the) book of Job. 
•  Job 13:15 is the utterance of a man who has lost his explicit hold on God, but not his implicit hold, “Though he slay me, yet I will trust in him.” That is the last reach of the faith of a man. 
•  Job’s creed is all gone; all he believed about God is disproved by his own experiences, and his friends when they come, say in effect, “You are a hypocrite, we can prove it from your own creed.”
• But Job sticks to it, “I am not a hypocrite, I do not know what accounts for all that has happened, but I will hold on to it that God is just and I shall see Him vindicated in it all.”
• God never makes His way clear to Job. Job struggles with problem after problem, and providence brings more problems all the time, and in the end Job says, “…now mine eye seeth thee” (Job 42:5): all he had hung onto in the darkness was true, and that God was all he believed Him to be, loving and just, and honorable…
• Will I trust the revelation given of God by Jesus Christ when everything in my personal experience flatly contradicts it?”

These are notes from Eugene Peterson’s book, The Message: Job: Led by Suffering to the Heart of God.

• Job was doing everything right when suddenly everything went wrong.
• He refuses to accept the role of defeated victim.
• Job does not curse God.
• Neither does Job explain suffering.
• He does not instruct us how to live so that we can avoid suffering.
• Suffering is a mystery, and Job comes to respect the mystery.
• Perhaps the greatest mystery in suffering is how it can bring a person into the presence of God in a state of worship, full of wonder, love, and praise.
• Even in his answer to his wife he speaks the language of uncharted irony, a dark and difficult kind of truth: “We take the good days from God- why not also take the bad days?”
• Sufferers attract fixers the way road-kills attract vultures.
• These people use the word of God frequently and loosely.  
• They are full of spiritual diagnosis and prescription.
• It all sounds so hopeful.
• But then we begin to wonder, “Why is it that for all their apparent compassion we feel worse instead of better after they have said their piece?”
• The book of Job is not only a witness to the dignity of suffering and God’s presence in our suffering but it is also our primary biblical protest against religion that is reduced to explanations or “answers”.
• Many of the answers that Job’s so-called friends give him are technically true.
• But it is the “technical” part that ruins them.  They are answers without personal relationship, intellect without intimacy.
• In every generation there are men and women who pretend to be able to instruct us in a way of life that guarantees that we will be “healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
• He (Job) rejects the kind of advice and teaching that has God all figured out, that provides glib explanations for every circumstance.
• Job’s honest defiance continues to be the best defense against the cliches of positive thinkers and the prattle of religious small talk.
• Real faith cannot be reduced to spiritual bromides and merchandized in success stories.  It is refined in the fires and storms of pain.
• We cannot have truth about God divorced from the mind and heart of God.
• When we rush in to fix suffering (people), we need to keep in mind several things:
• 1.  No matter how insightful we may be, we don’t really understand the full nature of our friends’ problems. 
• 2.  Our friends might not want our advice.
• 3.  The ironic fact of the matter is that more often than not, people do not suffer less when they are committed to following God, but more.
• When these people go through suffering, their lives are often transformed, deepened, marked with beauty and holiness, in remarkable ways that could never have been anticipated before the suffering.
• Instead of continuing to focus on preventing suffering… we should begin entering the suffering.
• Entering the mystery and looking around for God.
• We need to quit feeling sorry for people who suffer and instead look up to them, learn from them, and if they will let us- join them in protest and prayer.
• Pity can be nearsighted and condescending.
• Shared suffering can be dignifying and life-changing.

My Vacation Taught Me About Community

Live in harmony with one another.

-Romans 12:16a

I just got back from a family vacation.  We all lived in a condominium together for a week.  We had two sets of people who don’t normally live together, so we had to learn to be together.

Every vacation time puts us into a different routine, in a different place sometimes with different people.  This one was just like that.  No one or no thing completely ruined it, but there were challenges and joys.

Even though it was completely predictable, I was was caught off guard once by the difficulty in choosing what to watch on television.  Four out of the five of us are first borns, who like to dictate what tv shows will be watched.

After the first disagreement, I realized that I don’t need to control what we watch.  And I was immediately set free.  The next time there was an issue, we discovered the second tv and split into two groups.

You don’t have to do everything together.  This is stating the obvious, but I think being able to not only have good times all together, but to also be alone or in two’s or three’s; is all about freedom and gracious diversity.

In fact, the best times I had during the week were alone times with each of the other individuals.  The special one to one times, that went deeper and where there was undivided attention, sharing and conversation were gifts that deepened each of these relationships.

The all together times were great too!  We played charades together and we prepared food in the kitchen together (two at a time).  Sounds silly, but I told my brother in law, who made me my toast one morning, that it was so good, and that it was a special moment of the week; because he’s a guy who doesn’t cook, and he’s never served me food before, in all the years I’ve known him.

One of us was delayed because of an emergency at work and we adjusted.  We had to rearrange our packing of the trunk plans, because we changed who was driving with whom.

We got lost finding the grocery store to get supplies the first night.  And taking ‘the scenic route’ for our day trip to the mountains, led to a couple of wrong turns and about an extra hour in the car.  

One of us got sick and had to go home early.  Three of us got back aches from the severely firm mattresses.  

But we had a great time.  We went through each small problem together.  We grew as people and we moved to a deeper place with each other, because we now know and respect each other more.

All these positive things are little.  But little things make for big things.  

A little bit of kindness.  A little change in loving others.  A little bit of bridling the tongue.

Little ‘I forgive you’s’, saying you’re sorry, putting others first, not taking offense, listening, having fun, being patient, serving others, talking to and meeting strangers at the pool, living in and being one who creates an atmosphere of unconditional love, and saying ‘good morning’ and meaning it.

It is all the little good things that make life better and it really reflects and connects back to God.  God is there with us, when we gather; and we can commune with and participate in God’s goodness, even though that goodness runs counter to the popular me-ness all around us.

Everything Does Not Happen For A Reason

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified;and those he justified, he also glorified.

-Romans 8:28-30

One of the dumbest sayings is, “Everything happens for a reason”.  Some people believe that they are comforted by this idea.  When disaster strikes or a loved one dies under unfortunate circumstances, they say this.

The ‘reason’ that I think is false and that makes the statement false is God’s will.  The belief out there is that God wills tragedy: accidents, including kids being run over or even murdered.  No.  Everything does not happen for a reason.

I just finished reading a book that was mostly a beautiful story about a tragic event of a young man.  He died in an unfortunate event, at age twenty.  Eventually, in the story, this statement was made, that everything happens for a reason and that it was ‘his time’.

I think that ‘everything happens for a reason’ is mistakenly justified through a reading of Romans 8 and maybe the seasons verses in Ecclesiastes, where the author says that there is ‘a time to die’.  There is a time or season when people die and there may be a time God determines when a person dies.

But, when someone dies early, there is another saying that goes, “She died before her time”.  This statement is in the same category of human suffering that is not God’s will.

The Holocaust and children being raped is not God’s will or God’s plan.  All bad things that happen, including untimely deaths are also not God’s will or God’s plan.  They are not something that he has a reason for letting happen.

Romans 8 teaches us that God works in the midst of human suffering.  This is a very different idea than believing God caused it.  This is very different than believing that since God allowed it, it must be his will.

It was not his will, but it happened, and he loves you.  God is all powerful.  But humans and forces of darkness have certain freedoms to do harm.

Accidents happen.  I met a woman a few years ago.  The love of her life died in a tree trimming accident.

Bad things happen, while God is all powerful and all good.

Many people die too soon.  It was not God’s will.

There is an error, an insidious belief that God predetermines our deaths.  This belief might ‘fit’ and feel good, when it is an older person, who is close to God, and they say goodbye to their earthly family and then hello to their heavenly family, in glory and joy.

We get in trouble when we apply this to almost everyone else, especially those who suddenly die, die young, or die under tragic or evil circumstances.

Some Christians that believe in predeterminism believe that it does not matter really how they live and the choices that they make, because their time of death is already set.

Some people die shortly after they retire from full-time work, because they lack purpose.  Every year, people die climbing mountains, which was completely their choice.

There is a difference between God knowing what will happen and God predetermining what happens.

It is lazy to believe that God predetermines everything.  It is a terrible deception.  Actually, God has set things up in the world, so that many things will not happen unless we do it.  We must pray and we must act, or else God’s will can not be done on earth.

That is how big God is on free will.  He freely gives, but then we must freely give for good things to work out.

Error is on both ends of the spectrum.  To say that life and everything that happens on earth is a script, written and directed by God, that we act in, as actors who do not have complete freedom, is false.  And to say that God either does not exist, or is detached and we do everything, including our religions and our own merited righteousness, is also false.

The truth is that we have freedom to choose.  The truth is that bad things do happen, that were not God’s plan or God’s idea.  The truth is that we do not know why people die or are allowed to suffer untimely deaths.

On top of all this is God who is all powerful and totally loving.  There is often no cause and effect.  Remember the story where the tower collapsed and a bunch of people died and they asked Jesus about it (Luke 13).  It was just an accident.  There was no reason.

The Warrior God

God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the desert,

Selah.

-Psalm 68:7

God is the Warrior God.  That is what Psalm 68 is all about.  God is at war for his people.  This is something we need to understand.

God is on his way somewhere.  God is leading his people somewhere.

God is leading us out of bondage and into freedom.

God is leading us from death to life.

God is leading us from alienation to becoming a nation.

God is a person who is with his people, standing before them and leading them.

God’s people are not ever left alone, but are led by God himself.

This has always been God’s way, from the beginning through today.

God is leading each one us us and all of us together somewhere.

This is something to reckon with and understand in your life.

And there is only one who is the True God.  Only one and that one is plural, three in one.

God is at war with all the other false so-called gods.

Only the one True God gives life and saves people.

The face of God is Jesus.

Every ‘god’ will bow to the One True God, who is Christ Jesus.

Jesus is God and God is at war with every false ‘god’, who is working to deceive people.

There is only one True God, the plural God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God is The Warrior King who is at war and taking his people to his dwelling place.

This is what God has been doing and is doing today.

The war is on and has been on.  We just need to recognize it and follow behind God who is leading us and making war on our behalf.

The Falling of The Failing ‘Gods’

However, you will die like humans and fall like any other ruler.
-Psalm 82:7

There is a saying that goes, “He got too big for his britches”.  It means that a person began to live or function in an inflated unreality about themselves, which ended up causing their demise.

I listened to someone this week, who’s message is humility.  He said, ‘everything in life is about humbling us, so that we can be closer to God and obedient to him; and so that we can know God, serve God and go into a rewarding afterlife’.  I’m paraphrasing, but this guy’s message, who is also bold, but humbly bold for Jesus; is that life is all about being obedient to be who God made you to be.

Around 99% of us are called to be obscure.  You may have a thousand or more social media followers or a book or two out and still be pretty obscure.  And on the other hand, you might ‘catch fire’ and see big growth in sales, income, numbers, influence or fame.

In any of these scenarios, the goal for your life is humility. Our calling is to humbly walk in fame and fortune or failure and poverty, loving God and loving people.  Our problem in discontent, at whatever station or level we are in or at, and then corruption, whether we manage one person or are looked up to by thousands of people.

The message of Psalm 82, is to remember that you are human and to humble yourself.  On the world’s stage, we see people who have been given great authority blow it.  Instead of doing good, they basically do bad.

The writer of Psalm 82 saw a picture, a vision, of God coming to judge every judge and ruler.  God evaluates and judges the judges.  Part of God’s word to these people is, “You are human: you’re going to die”.

Why would God say that to anyone?  Because they are acting like they are above humanity, untouchable ‘gods’.  That is exactly how you do not want to be in your leadership.

Humility is the way of Christ, while pride is the other way.  Psalm 82 is a poem or song that was a rebuke or take down of judges.  These judges, who were rulers, had the opportunity to do the right and just things, with their power.  But they failed and instead did nothing.

People gain power and authority in various ways, but all of it is allowed by God and judged by God.  Having power is to be like God, who holds all power.  It is disastrous to think that because you have some power or authority, fame or a following, that you are a god.

But that is the way, oftentimes, outside of Christ.  We can marvel that God has given us or that we have certain power or authority.  But to think we are God or a god is a grave mistake.

There are people who have been given authority to make them ‘like gods’, who have operated like their own sort of ‘god’, who are misrepresenting God.  And God has a time when he shows up and takes over for those who have not been doing the job on the earth, that was given to them to do.

The rebuke or take-down is to say to them, “You are human and will die like everyone.  The power you were given made you ‘like gods’, not ‘gods’!”.

Men and women are given authority on the earth, which is like being ‘gods’.  The key word is ‘like’.  You have power and authority, like God does, except you are not a god, but human.

I like the way that The Message renders Psalm 82 and I will highlight verse 7:

God calls the judges into his courtroom,

he puts all the judges in the dock.

“Enough! You’ve corrupted justice long enough,

you’ve let the wicked get away with murder.

You’re here to defend the defenseless,

to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;

Your job is to stand up for the powerless,

and prosecute all those who exploit them.”

Ignorant judges! Head-in-the-sand judges!

They haven’t a clue to what’s going on.

And now everything’s falling apart,

the world’s coming unglued.

“I commissioned you judges, each one of you,

deputies of the High God,

But you’ve betrayed your commission

and now you’re stripped of your rank, busted.”

O God, give them their just deserts!

You’ve got the whole world in your hands!

The message here is that God is calling judges to account.  The Judge is judging the corrupt judiciary.

What does this verse, “However, you will die like humans and fall like any other ruler”, mean?  It means, remember that you are human and not divine.  There is one divine one, the three in one God.

We need to humble ourselves or face humiliation.  Everyone dies and we need to be reminded of that.

And God does come on the scene, if he chooses to, and strips leaders or judges of their power and authority, that is ultimately from him, when these people are blowing it.

Our Sorrows Call Us into The Kindness of God

My deep need calls out to the deep kindness of your love.
Your waterfall of weeping sent waves of sorrow
over my soul carrying me away,
cascading over me like a thundering cataract.
-Psalm 42:7 (TPT)

Our sorrows call us into the kindness of God.  Our grieving is an opportunity to know God.  The deep pain we have experienced is filled by God.

For those who have experienced deep sorrow, a deep experience of God’s kindness is available.  The experience begins with the realization that God has been with you in your suffering.  And God is here today, to wash you with tears.

For the one who has experienced great sorrow, God has a washing and cleansing journey.

Some of us deal with sorrow by saying or living either:

1. “It did not happen.”
2. “It happened, but should not have.”
3. “It happened, but it’s no big deal.”

Number one is denial.  Number two is a calculated life, that is “tit for tat”, “cause and effect” or a sort of legalism; and may include unforgiveness and the bitterness towards others, God or yourself.  Number three is minimizing, where I might see myself as more than human, or less than human: “that did not hurt”, or, “I must have deserved it”.

All three of these are dysfunctional.  Dysfunctional means that our functioning is blocked.  When our functioning is blocked, we become stuck as smaller people than we could be; and we impose on ourselves a constricted life.

The fourth way is to say, “God is good and His kindness is more than I know.”

1. “It did happen, and God was with me and experienced all of it with me.”
2. “I don’t know why it happened, but I know that God was with me and loved me in that time.”
3. “It was a big deal and hurt, even excruciatingly; and God was with me.”

As we get the revelation of God’s kindness and that God was with us in whatever painful experience we went through, we might circle back to “why?”, many times.  That is simply the wrong question.  And the wrong answer is that God is not good or is bad.

When we come out of denial, blaming and minimizing; and embrace the reality of our pain, loss and sorrow; the next step or stage is a deeper revelation of God:  God is kind, God is good, God is compassionate and God is merciful to me.

That God who is The God, is the one I can be real with and let my sorrows flow before.  God’s deep kindness, deep love, deep comfort and deep healing has always been available.  There is a time in our journey, when we come to realize this and begin to call to God for God’s deep kindness.

Our lives with the deep pain and the deep need for healing and wholeness, become a prayer.  The revelation that comes is that God weeps with us and for us.  God has intercessory tears for us.

Our sorrows call us into the kindness of God.  Our grieving is an opportunity to know God.  The deep pain we have experienced is filled by God.

For those who have experienced deep sorrow, a deep experience of God’s kindness is available.  The experience begins with the realization that God has been with you in your suffering.  And God is here today, to wash you with tears.

The Journey into Union With God

I long and yearn for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.

Even a sparrow finds a home, and a swallow, a nest for herself
where she places her young— near Your altars,

Lord of Hosts, my King and my God.
How happy are those who reside in Your house,
who praise You continually.

Selah

Happy are the people whose strength is in You,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a source of springwater;
even the autumn rain will cover it with blessings.
They go from strength to strength;
each appears before God in Zion.

-Psalm 84:2-7

The center of life is union with God.  We all have all kinds of things we are involved in and all sorts of relationships.  A common misconception is that life is about building things like a family, a business, a ministry, a following, a resume, an education or gaining wisdom, wealth or fame.

These are really the incidentals to life, that while being good and important, are not the center of life.  The center of life is union with God.  If we do not make union with God the center of our lives, we become off center, misguided, unhappy and discontent.

Psalms like Psalm 84 are not meant to be nor have the meaning of how wonderful it is to go to church, for Christians.  These songs are not about the longing and desire to get to corporate worship times.  Pieces like this one are prophetic poems about union with God in the life of the believer.

The courts of the Lord is God’s presence.  The psalmist tell us that in his next refrain: “My heart and flesh cry out for the living God.”  The longing is not for congregational singing nor for contemporary worship, but for union with God who is the center of my life.

God is my source, my wellspring and my only hope.  That is who and what I long for.  That is who I must have and who I must and need to be with.

Without God, front and center, in my thoughts and affecting my heart; my life falls apart.  I have an overwhelming desire for God and to be with God.

Every day, there is an opportunity for all sorts of things to creep into my life and crowd out my relationship with God.  I never lose God, but sometimes these things turn my attention away from God.  And I don’t like that and don’t want that.

I want God to be front and center in my life, in my thoughts and in how I see, hear and feel life and the people I come into contact with.

The psalmist looks and sees the birds who have found their homes, in and on the temple of God.  He sees this as a powerful metaphor of living in God’s presence and making that your home where you create your own and give birth and raise your own families.

Next, the psalmist gives us a picture of how a life of pursuing God works in daily lives.  We are each on a journey, on a road or a pilgrimage to God.  We are all people on our way to heaven.

That is what life is about, being on our way to God.  Everything that we go through or that happens to us is raw material that is a bridge to union with God.  Since mankind fell, life has been hard; and every hardship is softened and transformed by relationship with God.

Being a believer has always been an inside job.  We are changed, transformed and live from the inside out.  The strength of the Lord is deposited into our hearts through grace and by faith, resting on God’s steadfast love or faithfulness.  From the strength God provides in a heart under His care, that has begun its journey, the life of the believer is lived.

The Valley of Baca is the place of weeping.  We all pass through places of sadness. We have losses: disappointments, failures, injustices, seeming silence from God, betrayals, sicknesses, setbacks and loneliness.

The valley of weeping is part of the journey.  There are three things to know about this place of sadness on our journeys:

1. It is unavoidable.
2. Our time there is finite.
3. We get to take our sorrow and see it transformed, redeemed and recompensed.

When we encounter sorrow, how we respond is important.  Children do react and respond childishly, but adults need to face troubles in a grown up way.  “God, help me to grow up, before I grow old”, we say.

Being in denial or sinking into shame are two examples of the wrong way to respond to sorrowful circumstances.  Another destructive one is to get stuck in anger.  

We can not and should not avoid our valleys of weeping, because they are a place of transformation.  With every sorrow or thing that makes you sorrowful, there is a gift attached.  Where their is sorrow, we get to find wells of living water or springs of nourishment.

In the same place where we feel the pain of loss or disappointment, God has already provided sustenance and living waters.  A place of springwater is just below the surface in our valley of tears.  We just have to dig down and find it.

God never blesses us small.  God’s blessings are overflowing and there is always extra.  And that is the picture of autumn rains falling on us in that valley of tears.

The place of revival or renewal 

is in our daily routine lives 

as we meet with God 

in our circumstances of life 

that are sometimes sad.  

The place of revival or renewal is in our daily routine lives as we meet with God in our circumstances of life that are sometimes sad.  God puts a deposit in us at the beginning of our journeys and that deposit accrues interest and our benefactor puts in more deposits along the way.  But we also procure our find compensation that has our names on it, in the midst of the sorrows of our lives.

Bravery is called for for every adult saint.  We valiantly face our trials, setbacks and failures; and go forward, finding new grace packages in the place where we are lamenting.  And God transforms us into the image of Christ.

Even in the greatest of losses, that are shocking, God has reviving waters stored up for us.  God takes wrecked lives and transforms, renews, heals and redeems them.  The greater the loss, the greater the work that God has in store to recover us.

Our hearts are set on the journey of union with God.  We see the birds, raising their families, in and on the temple, as a picture of living our lives in, towards and to God; living lives of worship and service to God.  And then, we embrace the reality of small and large losses and sorrows along the journey and we discover that God has hidden help and sustenance waiting for us, to strengthen us; making us more godly.

Life is a journey into union with God.  That is the center from which life is lived and sustained.  

Do Not Forget The Poor

Provide justice for the needy and the fatherless; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute.

-Psalm 82:3

God’s heart is for the poor.  Whatever emphasis that we have or our ministries have, we must never forget the poor.  Benevolence is something that all believers should have in common.

If you do not care about the poor, you have no connection to God.  God’s heart is for the poor.  The worst form of injustice is when the weakest people are not helped by those who have the power and resources to help them.

Your calling or your ministry could be any of a thousand things, but do not forget the poor.

You may be in any of the thousands of the different denominations, non-denominations, tribes or movements in Christianity.  But remember to not forget the poor.  God’s heart is for the poor.

You yourself may have a lot or have a little.  You may have many friends or a few.  You may be famous or unknown.

Just do not forget the poor.

Defend, vindicate, stand up for, be fair to, do right by and give justice to:

• The needy, the poor, the weak ones, the helpless, the lowly and the defenseless ones.
• The fatherless and the orphans.
• The forgotten, destitute, the afflicted, the wretched and the oppressed people.
• The disenfranchised, suffering and powerless children. 

God’s heart is for the poor.  Our hearts in God’s will be for the poor.  This is a marker of the authentic people of God.

____________________________________________________

Notes:

A few New Testament passages and verses on serving the poor:

Luke 10:25-37; Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-37; 10:1-8; Gal. 2:10; 1 Tim 5:3-16; Jas 1:27; 2:15-16

Keep An Eye On Me

Protect me as the pupil of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings.

-Psalm 17:8

What is the Christian life about?  Is it about obedience, about being good?  The Christian life is about walking with God.

The psalms have poems that reflect the life of believers.  

God has his eye on me.  That is the life of the believer.  Walking with God is what the life is all about.

God is watching me and protecting me.  That is what the life of the believer is all about.  That is the fountain from which my life flows and the light from which my life emanates. 

Love for God is the basic thing, the center, the fountain from which the life flows.  God has his eye on me.  I am in God’s gaze.  He is protecting me.

With those thoughts in mind, I live my life.  The Christian life is about walking with God.