God

A Heart Hungry To Worship part 3

/ taethne

We continue with the next chapter from the book A Heart Hungry to Worship (available on Amazon).

Without worship, we go away miserable.[1]

Chapter 2

The Samaritan Woman

            The interaction between Jesus and the woman at the well in the New Testament book of John, chapter 4, is amazing. Its relevance to our modern world is worth looking at in detail. This woman is one who is desperately longing to worship God but she is confused as to what worshipping Him should be. The result is that she has given up trying to find God. Let us look at this encounter so we can discover how to relate to people searching for hope and truth in God.  

What a story! It is the story of a miserable woman going through the motions of an ordinary day. She was a failure at relationships – not so much in finding them, but at keeping them. She has been married and divorced five times, and is now with man number six. This shows us that having relationships is important to her. She does not want to be alone, and yet, we see that her choices in life have left her very lonely, indeed.

            She does not come to the well in the cool of the morning with the other women. I am sure that she cannot stand to hear the snide remarks and malicious gossip the other women directed at her. She would rather draw water up from a one hundred foot plus well by herself than be subjected to humiliation.

            Outcast, rejected in love, and with her self-esteem shot, she arrives at noon to retrieve her water. She is not alone like she had hoped. A stranger is there; worse, a Jewish one. Jews hated Samaritans. They called them half-breeds, false worshippers, and a people accursed by God. They charged the Samaritans with changing the sacred writings of Moses, intermarrying with pagans and setting up a rival place of worship. All true charges, by the way.

            This Jewish man politely asks her for a drink. Now she is wary. The only time men are polite to her are for illicit favors. “What does He really want from me? She decides to cut right to the chase. “Why are you, a Jew, asking anything from me?”

            Notice the reply of Jesus. It is really somewhat weird, especially to her. “If you only knew who I was you’d be asking me for living water.”

            She is not impressed with whoever this man, this Jew, thinks he is. Therefore, she decides to get rid of him by insulting him. She claims kinship with Jesus by appealing to “our father” Jacob. No Jew would stand for that. No Jew would even begin to admit they had a common ancestor, much less a revered one, with a Samaritan. Jesus should have stomped off in a huff leaving her alone, but he does not.

            Instead of leaving, he starts speaking gently to her and as he speaks, the Holy Spirit starts drawing her. As Jesus explains that his living water is eternal life, the Spirit illuminates her understanding. Her spiritual blindness begins to lift. Her yearning for eternal life explodes.

“Eternal life for me, God’s eternal love is for me? Is it really possible?”

            His words connect. She is so thirsty for real love. She is so hungry for a real relationship. Could God care for one like her? One who failed so many times? One who has failed so often? Eternal life, for her, did she hear that correctly?

            Oh, listen to her in verse 15. “Sir, give me this water, this eternal life, so I’ll never be thirsty again!”

            Do you hear the longing in her voice? She was just going through an ordinary day, one filled with the same misery and drudgery of countless days before and now hope is being offered to her. The hope of a lasting relationship with her Creator has been offered to her. Hope is a powerful thing. She has been given a hope that her future will be better than her past failures. In fact, hope in Jesus operates as both the evidence and proof that her sins are forgiven and her past no longer defines her. Nevertheless, she still needs to deal with one big issue in her life; is she willing to give up everything to receive this eternal life, this living water? How desperate is she?

            Jesus, knowing all about her, asks her a sharp, pointed request. “Go, get your husband, and come back.” The woman then reasons to herself, “Get my husband? I don’t have a husband. I’ve had five but none now. Why does he want to speak to him, anyway? I want to talk about eternal life, not about the part of me that I’ve failed at the most. Why is he changing the subject?”

            Jesus knew that this woman had been trusting in men, in relationships, for her security. He had to get her to admit that she was looking for security in the wrong places. She has a choice. She can change the painful subject he has brought up. She can also avoid it altogether and walk off. She could lie or she could tell the truth. The Holy Spirit continues to call her, to work on her heart. To her own surprise, she blurts out the truth to this stranger, “I have no husband.”

            Jesus reveals to her that he already knew the truth. He already knew her lifestyle and her life history. He knew all that and still offered her eternal life. Do you see how powerful that is? So many people think they have lived such a terrible life, that they have made too many wrong choices for God to desire a relationship with them. Nothing could be further from the truth. God, who knows and sees everything, offers eternal life, living water, to every person. Despite what we do, He still offers it to us.

            Now she is excited! He knew all that and still offered her this gift! He must be God’s prophet. What a wonderful day!  This is why a Jewish man is talking with her, a Samaritan woman. He must be on a mission from God with a message for their town. How fortunate for her that she was able to meet with him, privately.

            Now many people look at her next statement and assume that she is trying to change the subject. This is not the case. She desperately wants eternal life. She craves it. Her heart is hungry to worship God because it is responding to the work of the Spirit who is bringing it to life! Let me paraphrase her response.

            “You are God’s prophet! I see this now. You can tell me where to find God. You just said as much. Where do I go? To which group do I need to belong? What holy place is correct? What ritual must I perform? Please, sir, where do I go to find God? How do I get this eternal life?”

            Can you hear the desperation in her voice, the hope against hope springing up inside of her that she might possibly find a relationship with God after all these years? Do you hear it in the voices of those with whom you interact? People desperately want to believe that they can have a relationship with God but they’ve lost hope of actually finding one. Especially, when God’s people have been quick to judge and cast off as unclean those who have made major mistakes in life. If you listen closely, you can hear her words echoing through their voices.

            “Could it be true that I could be offered eternal life? With my lifestyle, my life history, are you seriously telling me that God is calling to me, wanting a personal relationship with me?”  Yes, I am; In fact, God loves you so much that He sent His only Son for you.

            “Where would I go to find this? To what church do I have to belong? What rituals do I have to perform? With all the different groups claiming to be the way to God, how will I ever determine the truth? Please, sir, where do I go to find God?”

            Jesus is so gentle with her. “Lady, the place is not important. God can be found anywhere. If you worship in spirit and in truth, the physical location is not important. The relationship with Him is important. He can be found right now, right here, through Me.”

            She is confused. She still does not quite grasp what he is saying to her. Hear the wistfulness in her voice as she makes the next statement.

            “When the Messiah, God’s Anointed One, comes, He will clear up the confusion. He will explain things to us. How I wish He were here.”

            Jesus says to her, “I am He.” The last blinders fall from her spiritual eyes. She sees and understands. She accepts what He says. How do we know this? She goes and gathers her neighbors to come and hear Him. Verse 41 says, many more believed. Many more than just this woman comes to believe in Jesus Christ and worship Him. Listen to their words in verse 42 – “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

 He is not just a teacher but also a Savior. He is more than just a prophet; He is a Savior. He is more than just a Jewish Messiah; He is the one and only Savior of the world.

            Notice in the story how she gets a crowd to come to Jesus. She goes and tells the townspeople, “come see a man who has told me everything I have ever done.” The men came to see if Jesus knew they had been involved with her sexually. The women came to hear if their husbands were among the adulterers named. The servants came to hear scandal and gossip. They whole town comes to hear Jesus speak; they are so impressed that they ask Him to stay for two days. It is after spending time with Jesus that the Bible says that many of them believed.

            Their hearts were hungry for worship because the Holy Spirit was already working in them, drawing them to Himself. There are people in every town of every country whose hearts are hungry for worship because the Spirit is calling them. They long to worship God, they long to enter into a personal relationship with Him but they simply do not know where to start. That is our job. Those of us who are in a relationship with God are the ones qualified to explain to those desiring a relationship with God how they can have a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

            We need to be quite clear that this relationship does not depend on which church or to which denomination one belongs. We need to be quite clear that it doesn’t depend on a ritual or one’s moral, ethical or religious performance. Jesus explained that a relationship with God is based on worshipping in spirit and in truth.  Before we explore that statement in more detail, I want to introduce you to Dinah.

[1] A.W.Tozer, Worship: The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church

A Heart Hungry To Worship Part 2

/ taethne

Years ago I published a book, A Heart Hungry to Worship, (available on Amazon) that focused on relating the stories of Biblical characters to people I have encountered in my ministry. For 2024 I would like to upload a chapter at a time to encourage people. Below is the first chapter from the book. Yet, if he would, man cannot live all to this world. If not religious, he will be superstitious. If he worships not the true God, he will have his idols.[1]

Chapter 1

Sheila and Maggie’s Stories

            Sheila is a creative, vibrant woman in her mid-twenties who is the new owner of her own art gallery. Response in the first few months has been better than expected, but her expectations were not high to begin with.

Sheila is grateful for a chance to start her life over, given that she almost ruined it during her high school years. Known as a wild party girl, Sheila led a life filled with alcohol, drugs and numerous boyfriends. Finding herself pregnant after graduation shocked her. She got an abortion before anyone knew she was pregnant. To her surprise, the experience was not as easy or painless as she believed it would be. The scarring caused by the procedure rendered her incapable of bearing children; nightmares still haunt her sleep two or three times each week.

Her parents are distant. Her mother is an alcoholic, wrapped up in her own miseries, while her father, disgusted by her behavior in high school, has pretty much disowned her. Sheila knows her lifestyle has to change, but the pull of friends who still view her as the party girl is strong. So is facing the continual scrutiny and gossip in her small town.

For the first time in her life, Sheila is contemplating spiritual things. She tried reading an old family Bible a few times, but she could not understand the Victorian-era English. Twice she even tried attending church. Since she had no idea what any of them believed, she tried the large church downtown first. Sheila reasoned that she would be anonymous in a large crowd.

She came away disappointed. She felt as if she had stepped into a cold marble vault. Everything was very solemn and the service was spoken in a foreign language. She did not know when to stand, sit, or when to respond. She could see that for many people it was a meaningful experience, but for her it was just confusing.

The next week she chose a nearby church that had a more modern feel about it. The atmosphere in this church was different: vibrant and alive. While the songs were unfamiliar, at least they were upbeat and the people singing them seemed happy. Then, unexpectedly, multiple people started talking loudly in what sounded to her like multiple languages.  When it reached a crescendo, Sheila was out the door, shaken and confused. Maybe a person had to learn another language to be a Christian. If that was the case, she was out of luck. The one semester of French she took in high school had been a spectacular failure.

It will be awhile before Sheila ventures to church again. Maybe, if she could go with someone who could explain what was going on, she would try. Which church would accept someone with her past, though? The people at the churches she visited already looked like they had their lives together.

Sheila feels guilty about her abortion and believes God will punish her for it. While she longs to know Him, she is deathly afraid of meeting Him because of her past actions. She has reached the point where something has to change in her life. She wonders, “Is there any hope for a person like me? Is there any way to bury the demons from my past that haunt me?”

Sheila has one last straw to which she is clinging. She has a Christian friend that has been supportive and willing to listen to her pour out her heart during late night phone calls. She has kept him at a distance because of her fear of being too vulnerable. He has offered to take her to his church sometime or even hold a Bible study with her.

Maybe, just maybe, Sheila thinks, she will be able to find answers to her questions. While she is not yet ready to visit another church, she is willing to study the Bible with someone who knows and accepts her as a person. Perhaps there is hope for someone like her. There needs to be because she does not think she can face fifty more years like her first twenty-five.

Maggie has just turned forty. A hard working single mother, Maggie has struggled with finding meaningful relationships all of her life. Maggie experienced sexual abuse, as did her older sister, by a distant relative. As is all too often in small communities, where just about everyone is somehow related, very few believed her story and those who did wanted this dirty secret covered up so as not to bring scandal or embarrassment to the family.

            Maggie married young and had two children with a man who turned out to have a problem with drugs. Not wanting to have her children raised around a drug addict, it was not long before she filed for divorce.  After their divorce, she married again, this time to a person who promised her the world but who crushed her spirit by cheating on her. After moving, with three children, to a new town in order to start over, she attempted marriage number three. This marriage started fine but quickly soured due to the suspicious and jealous nature of her husband. Verbal and emotional abuse took its toll and this marriage collapsed after only a few years.

            Maggie vowed not to marry again. She threw herself into her work and her children’s lives. After the oldest two graduated high school, she began to think about herself. She felt she deserved love but was scared and hesitant to make herself vulnerable again.

When an old boyfriend from high school came back into her life, she wondered if he was the love she had been looking for all along.

            The first month flew by. So much for taking it slow, she was falling head over heels in love. He seemed to care about her and her children. He was attentive and caring. Then he got drunk and physically abusive one night and her world shattered, again. “Never again!” she vowed, would she allow herself to open up to anyone who would hurt her. Deep down, though, Maggie still desired to be loved and to love back. Her fear is that her desire for love will open herself up to hurt again.

            Maggie has one philosophy that she believes in: “Everything happens for a reason.” She just cannot grasp the reason behind what has happened to her. “Why was I abused?” ” Why has every marriage failed?” “Why have all my relationships fallen apart when I try so hard?” “When will I ever find love?”

            Maggie thinks of God from time to time. She believes in God, at least the little she has heard about Him. She has only been to church a few times in her life, mostly for funerals. What she believes about God is that He is a person worth knowing, someone who is perfect and holy and who expects His followers to be that way. She doesn’t feel she would qualify to be a follower because of her past failures. She doesn’t believe that God would want anything to do with her. Maggie lives without hope and truly believes she will spend life after death in hell; “After all,” she thinks, “It cannot be much worse than the life I am living now.”

            Deep down she would like a relationship she can count on, but she is so terrified of being disappointed again that she is not even willing to give God a chance to initiate one with her.

            Maggie and Sheila’s stories are not unique. In fact, their stories are of people I know and work with who have had similar life experiences. I count them as my friends but I have yet to penetrate the shields they have erected around their lives.

            I long to offer them the hope they so desperately need but are afraid to accept. We talk often, especially when crisis happens in their life. They know they need help beyond that which humans can offer, but they are not ready to ask God. Their reasoning is simple: “God is my only hope and if He lets me down, I truly have nothing and no one left.”

            The Bible contains the story of a person just like Maggie and Sheila. With a past that haunts her, this woman finds herself constantly entering one failed relationship after another. A woman who is desperate to find love, who wants to believe that God can love her, but who struggles to make sense of the world she finds herself in. Let us look at her story.

[1] Theodore Parker, The Transient and the Permanent

A Heart Hungry To Worship

/ taethne

Years ago I published a book, A Heart Hungry to Worship, (available on Amazon) that focused on relating the stories of Biblical characters to people I have encountered in my ministry. For 2024 I would like to upload a chapter at a time to encourage people. Below is the introduction from the book.

 It is in the process of being worshipped that God communicates His presence to men.[1]

Introduction

            God created each of us with an innate desire to worship Him. You would think, then, that it should come naturally to us. Yet millions have no knowledge of who God is, so worshipping Him is impossible. Millions more are confused as to how to find Him or how to approach Him when He is found. Still others are convinced that even if they met God He would not accept worship from them. They feel so unworthy they cannot believe He would want any kind of relationship with them.

You will meet some of these people in this book. These are people like you and I, struggling to make sense of this world, convinced there is something more than what we are experiencing. People hoping against hope that someday they will have a relationship with a God they desperately want to love them, a God they crave to worship. People like Maggie, Sheila, Dinah and Renaldo who could be your neighbor, co-worker or cousin; people who long for the closeness that salvation by grace brings.

            One of the neat things about the Bible is that it contains true stories of people like this – like us! People who are desperately seeking to be found by God but do not know where to start. They are people like the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts or the Samaritan woman in John’s gospel. They are people who have a desire to worship God but are confused how that worship comes about.

            I tell their stories in the pages ahead. Stories about those who God is drawing into a relationship they desire but are scared to enter. Those who the Holy Spirit has begun drawing but have not quite arrived. Those whose hearts are hungry to worship the One True Living God.

[1] C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Light In The Darkness

/ taethne

I first wrote this 3 years ago. With all that has happened in our world since then, I felt it appropriate to repost today.

Light In The Darkness

Isaiah 50:10-11
10 Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

There are times in our lives when, as Christians, we are called to serve God in the midst of darkness. There are times when it is difficult to see very far ahead. Like driving on a dark highway on a moonless night in the middle of a rainstorm, our lives sometimes feel as if we are going nowhere fast and we are not sure if we will make it to our destination.

It is interesting to me that many Christians desire to be “overcomers”, but do not want much to overcome. We want to go to heaven, but we do not want to die to go there. We want our faith increased, without having to rely on anyone. We want all good times, all the time, and that is simply not how life works. Life is filled with melody and misery, high times and hard times. You may be experiencing a dark time right now, what many saints of the past termed “a dark night of the soul.” You may be at a point right now where you aren’t able to make sense of what is happening in your life. There are times, seasons in our lives, where we have studied the lessons, learned our formulas, memorized the promises of the Bible and think we have it all figured out — and suddenly we are plunged into a deep, deep darkness.

What do you do when the lights go out? When deep darkness comes into your life?
It has been said that in school one learns the lessons first and tests second. In life, we take the test first and learn the lessons second. Hopefully, today you will come to see that there are lessons to be learned when the lights go out.

Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God

In this verse, the Bible is talking about a faithful servant of God. This person loves and fears God. He or she is being obedient. This is not a backslider or someone who has wandered off from God. This is an active Christian who loves the Lord and is being obedient to God’s voice, yet they are in a dark place.

There is a distorted idea out there that once a person becomes a Christian it is all honey and no bees. Not true. It rains on both the just and the unjust. There are tens of thousands of Christians who love God and are obediently serving Him who are experiencing dark times. Over a hundred thousand are martyred across the globe annually.

Job said, “God has put darkness in my path” (Job 19:8) Habakkuk exclaimed, “How long shall I cry out and you not hear?” (Hab. 1:2) John the Baptist sent messengers to Jesus from the cell in which he was imprisoned asking Him if He really was the Messiah. Each of these godly men came to a point in their life that they did not fully comprehend. They experienced a time of darkness, when they did not understand what was happening to them nor why God was allowing it.

When you are in darkness it doesn’t necessarily mean you have sinned or that you are outside of God’s will for your life. It might be that God has put you in a dark time so that His light shines brighter and you can see Him more clearly.

Faith is like film. It is developed in the dark. We grow the most spiritually when we are forced to look to Jesus alone for help. You will never know how much you need Jesus until Jesus is all you have. As Christians, we are called to live by faith – not by explanations. Our verse tells us to trust or lean on the name of the Lord. Even when tough times come. If you do not have the conviction that God is good all the time then you will not stand when darkness falls. Job said – “even if He slays me I will trust in Him.” When walking in darkness we must trust, lean on, God and His promises – which never fail.

When you are in the dark you don’t need explanations. You need God. An explanation sometimes makes things worse. Sometimes God removes all the answers to give us Himself. A relationship with Him is more important than reasons. In his blindness, John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. In prison John Bunyon wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. In exile, John wrote Revelation. In the dark, God develops our faith. Never doubt in the dark what you learned in the light. The test of our character is what we do, how we react, in the dark. God is still God when the darkness comes. He is still reigning on His throne. He still works out things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

Some things, some truths in life, are only learned in the dark. For example, have you ever said, “the stars are out tonight?” Did you know they are out in the daytime but you cannot see them because of the sun’s brightness? There are some treasures, some beautiful things that are only revealed in the dark.

Psalm 148:3 says the stars are there to praise the Lord. Do you have a star in your darkness with which to praise God?

Here are some treasures of the dark. In the light, we see things that are near. In the dark, we see far away – light years away into outer space. We may think our brightest thoughts in the day, but we think our deepest thoughts at night. In the light, we see more clearly. In the dark, we see further. There are some aspects of our future God reveals to us in the dark. If you are praying for God to reveal to you what is next up for your life, be prepared for dark times so that He can show you things that are far off. Just ask Daniel and John about that.

Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.

There is a danger in the dark that Scripture warns us about. One of our most dangerous temptations is that we will be tempted to light our own fire. That is the warning of verse 11. If God has placed darkness around you, then you need to wait on God to remove it. It is better to be in the dark with God than to stand alone in man-made light. Do not ever give into despair during dark times. Darkness cannot overcome light. Remember, you don’t open a door to let darkness in. You open a door to spill out light.

If light has been removed from the situations in your life, then God, in His wisdom, has allowed it so that your faith can be developed and so that He can show you a glimpse of the future. If God is the One who has placed darkness in your path than do not be so foolish as to light your own fire. A man made fire is deceptive. It is not a sure guide to follow. God says that if we light our own fire in the middle of a God ordained darkness we will suffer.

Abraham and Sarah could not wait. Abraham created his own fire with Hagar to produce Ishmael. Untold centuries of suffering have followed his decision. Has darkness come into your life? Are you waiting on God or trying to light your own fire?
Even in the darkest of nights the sun will still rise and chase it away. Eventually God’s light will shine again and the lessons you learn in the dark will last for all eternity. You will see things and know truths that you had never seen or known before. Weeping may endure for a night says Psalm 30:5, but joy will come in the morning.

Remember this, when you are walking on a sunny day, feeling the warmth of the sun’s rays, those rays are 8.3 minutes old when they reach your face. Even though you feel the sun’s warmth, you have never experienced its full intensity. The sun’s surface temperature is approximately 10,000° F. Its inner core is in excess of 27,000,000 °F.(https://www.space.com/17137-how-hot-is-the-sun.html) You have felt her warmth but not her intensity.

Likewise, we can feel the warmth of God’s presence but we haven’t experienced the full intensity of His glory yet. There is coming a day when we will, but now we only see a fraction of it. When the lights go out God is still there, shining. He wants to give you a star to praise Him more. Our trials become stars in order to praise the Lord. When the lights go out, develop your faith, lean on the Lord, trust in Him and you will see further than you ever have before.

Eve – Lessons from a Great Mother

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Eve – A Mother to be Honored

There are a lot of good examples of mothers in the Bible. In the Old Testament, we have Hannah, Ruth, Bathsheba and Jochabed, to name a few. The New Testament gives us Lois, Eunice and Elizabeth. All of them had great strengths. The two greatest mothers, in my opinion, were Mary and Eve.
Mary, of course, was picked by God to give birth to, care for and raise Jesus. She was a woman of the highest moral character under tremendous pressure. How would you like to be responsible for parenting God’s Son? She did an outstanding job and we talk about her a lot, especially around Christmas time.
Eve, though, she was the very first mother. There was no one to teach her how to be a mom. From pregnancy to childbirth she had no idea what to expect. It had never happened before. Holding her first baby – she had no help, no frame of reference, no example to follow. She had never been a baby, a child, a teen so she couldn’t even begin to know what to expect. She had to figure it out all by herself.
She was the first mother to experience the joy of seeing her children grow, of learning how to crawl, walk, talk and run. Eve was also the first mother to see the consequences of her actions play out. She was the first to experience the heartbreak of seeing a child reject the faith and rebel. Some of you reading this have known that pain. Some of you have children or grandchildren or siblings who have walked away from God,
Eve was the first to experience the pain of losing a child. Some of you may have also experienced this. Mother’s Day is hard for many people as they remember those children who have died and many times the church has been insensitive to your pain. Stillbirths, miscarriages, infant deaths, deaths of children at any age – whether by accident, disease or even abortion weigh heavily on the heart. We expect, as parents, to die first. We don’t expect to have to bury our children. Eve had to bury Abel and live with the knowledge that another of her children, Cain, had murdered him.
Eve was also the first to see her children marry and leave home. She was the first to experience the excitement of grandchildren. She was also the first to lose her home. She lost Eden, a paradise. Some of you may have lost homes, through tornadoes, fire, divorce, bankruptcy or job loss. It is not easy picking up and starting over.
Can you imagine Eve’s life? Only Adam with her. No girlfriends, no mother – not until her own daughters grew to adulthood would she have another female adult to talk with. Can you imagine how lonely she must have been in those early years? These are some of the reasons I vote her as the greatest mother of all time.
But what does that mean for us now, in 2017? Well, let’s think for a moment. Who taught Eve how to be a good mother? Who was there for her, to tell her what to expect, what to do? God, Himself, was her resource. God was her first resource and all the resource she needed.
That is a big lesson for today. God is always enough. When he is all you have you come to realize that He is all you need. There is nothing He doesn’t know, no question He cannot answer. There is no problem, no situation that He is not willing and able to help with. Do your kids have you at wit’s end? Call on Him. Are you not sure what is going to happen next? Call on Him. Think you cannot go one, that there is no way out? Call on Him. He is more than enough.
The stories of the Bible are true stories written for our example. They are there for us to learn life lessons. The story of Adam and Eve reveals to us real people in real situations. They were the first to encounter things we take for granted today. They had each other and God. That was all. That was enough.
So many times, we feel as if no one understands what we are going through. We feel that our problems are bigger than anyone else’s problems. We feel alone, vulnerable and overwhelmed. By reading the Scriptures, we see people who faced the same problems and we find a God who meets their needs and helps them overcome their problems.
We fail, many times, to see God as a God who is present with us at all times. He walks with us, offering us His wisdom, strength and knowledge. He cares if a baby is colicky and cries night after night, keeping us awake. He cares if a child is pushing our buttons, or if a spouse is bitter and angry. He cares when we feel lonely even among a group of people.
God had to teach Adam and Eve how to parent. They didn’t learn it from a book. They didn’t have parents to teach them. They didn’t learn it from watching monkeys or cows. God taught them. That is how involved He is with us. He is never too busy. He wants us to communicate with Him. You will not bother Him by asking for help. He is willing and able. The God of the Bible is always helping us – even with the smallest things. He makes ax heads float so aa person can return a borrowed tool. He turns water into wine at a wedding reception so a young couple will not be embarrassed. To know that God is with us and that He cares is an anchor for our life that holds us fast. When Jesus says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”, it is not just words, it is reality.
Psalm 46:1 says “Our God is an ever-present help in times of trouble.” No place is without God. He is there at our celebrations, the births, weddings, holidays, birthdays and reunions. He is there at times of sadness, in hospitals, at funerals, battlegrounds and prisons. He is there in the normal, boring, mundane days. He is with you today, wherever you are. His Spirit is moving to and fro, softening hearts, bringing understanding of His Word to us.
We need to come to understand God as Eve did. She understood He was her ultimate resource. She had to lean on Him in every aspect of her life. If she wanted to know how to be the best person she could be, how to be a great spouse, how to be a great parent, how to do anything – she had to go to God and seek His help, His wisdom, His leadership. So, too, do we need to be that dependent upon God. You may pick another woman from the Bible to nominate for the greatest mother but in my book Eve is the one. May we all learn from her example.

UNSPECIFIED – NOVEMBER 10: The Book of Genesis: the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, miniature from the Bible of Souvigny, Latin manuscript 1 folio 4 verso, 12th Century. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Reflections on a Tuesday evening

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One of my favorite quotes that is attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr, is “We must accept finite disappointments but never lose infinite hope.” It reminds me of Psalm 30:5b “Weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.” Whatever troubles are happening now, for the Christian they are only temporary. Whatever hardship we are enduring in the present will fade in the future as out Lord comes for us, vindicates us, and takes us home with Him to live a life of unending joy. Here in this world we will have trouble, as Scripture plainly teaches, but we are not to be dismayed for we serve the One who overcomes all. What a great promise for all eternity — we serve a Risen Savior who is coming again and this is what gives us infinite hope. As we head into Easter, let us lift our eyes from the finite disappointments that so easily beset us and lift our eyes to the One who is hope incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Shortened Arm

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In Isaiah 59:1, Scripture records these words, “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not so short That it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull That it cannot hear.” (NASB) Why, then, is God treated by so many people as well-meaning in His desire to save individuals but impotent to actually do so? Is God’s arm actually shorter than the prophet Isaiah thought it was? It irks me to no end to hear sloppy preaching that says, “God has done all He can do, now it is up to you to be saved. You must take that final step on your own.” As if God is helplessly standing by watching millions of people slide into outer darkness because they will not take that step and He cannot reach out to them. That is not what Isaiah 59 says! If you go on to read the chapter you see a picture of man’s descent into sin and his impotence to help himself. The verses talk about how we fell so far that we hope for salvation (11) but are unable to bring it about. Then, because we cannot save ourselves, God’s own arm (16) brought salvation.

Jesus was sent to save His people from their sins. His very name reflects this truth. All the Father gave Him, He redeemed. He did not and cannot fail to save those the Father has elected to be adopted into His family. As has been written many times before on this site, God is Sovereign over the affairs of men and Jesus is both willing and able to save those whom He chooses to save.

I also get tired of preachers spouting, “The Holy Spirit is a gentleman, He will never force you to do anything you do not want to do.” Really? Where do they find that in Scripture? Must be from one of those “lite” versions of the Bible. Mine describes Him as  a counselor, a rebuker, a teacher, a convicter, a judge, an exhorter, an enabler, a baptizer, and a consuming fire but nowhere in Scripture does it say that the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. Certainly Saul of Tarsus was rudely interrupted on his way to Damascus to merrily kill more Christians. Scripture records Ananias being told that Saul would be taught what things He would suffer for Jesus’ sake. Hardly a gentlemanly way of dealing with someone, and this after being blinded. The Holy Spirit is likened to a wind – it rushes, catches, carries and moves us. It caught up Phillip and deposited him miles away from the Ethiopian eunuch, it swept up Elijah and blew as tongues of fire at Pentecost. Yes, a gentle zephyr is wind also but God works in many ways. Sometimes He does deal gently with us but sometimes He moves violently, swiftly, surely. There are times when God does force people to do certain things. He gives commands – Repent or perish. That is hardly a gentlemanly statement. He whips merchants from the Temple and calls people names. God sends a storm to stop Jonah from going on his merry way and keeps Paul from entering Bithynia. God is sovereign over His creation.

Sovereignty is such a frightening concept to those under the illusion that they are in charge of their little piece of the universe. Instead of seeing sovereignty as a doctrine of complete comfort, allowing us to rest in the hands and plans of a good God who knows what is best for us at all times; instead of seeing sovereignty as God loving us so much He actively keeps us from destroying ourselves, those who undermine this great doctrine do so because of a false notion that they are in charge of their own life. If God is, as Scripture states, sovereign over the affairs of men, don’t you see that this includes their salvation?

I serve a God whose arm was long enough and strong enough to reach down and save me when I was yet unaware of my condition. It was He who awoke my spirit to life, He who gave me spiritual sight to behold His glory, He who gave me faith to believe the promises He told to me, He who granted to me grace, mercy and forgiveness and He who sealed my spirit with His forevermore. Praise be to the God with long arms — great things He has done!