Category: life lessons

Lots of Sand and Plenty of Heat

“Behold, I am doing a new thing;
    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
    and rivers in the desert.”  

Isaiah 43:19

There is nothing that will increase your strength and your character like the wilderness does. It is God’s gym; he works you out on his equipment.  Good things will happen to all who exercise. The desert becomes a place of separation and resolve. It is not for the faint of heart.

This spiritual geography is also the launching pad for ministries: for Jesus’ public ministry was 40 days in the wilderness — the training for Moses’ powerful leadership of God’s people was 40 years in the desert — and maybe why you are serving your time in the wilderness, right now.  It has to be.  It is your place for this moment.


I tried to relieve your fears: “Don’t be terrified of them. God, your God, is leading the way; he’s fighting for you. You saw with your own eyes what he did for you in Egypt; you saw what he did in the wilderness, how God, your God, carried you as a father carries his child, carried you the whole way until you arrived here. But now that you’re here, you won’t trust God, your God—this same God who goes ahead of you in your travels to scout out a place to pitch camp, a fire by night and a cloud by day to show you the way to go.”

Deut. 1:31, ESV

At times of strenuous activity/emotion–he comes and carries us.  He is exceedingly gentle, and he knows precisely what we need, and he sure doesn’t stint on his grace–he pours it out lavishly.

Once in the desert, the Father keeps a close-eye on all his children. 

If you’re in the desert, know that your God is on duty.  Nothing that comes to you sneaks past His alert observation and consent.  (And after all, if you think about it, the wilderness is His as well.) We seem to always be on the anvil; in the wilderness where God is shaping us for higher things. But, by faith, it is a rich place to be.

“To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness – especially in the wilderness – you shall love him.”

–Frederick Buechner

Love, in Jesus,

Bryan

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My Two Sons

Pencil Portraits by Billy Nicol Creative

I have two sons and they are very different from each other. Connor is the oldest and he is an engineer who recently graduated from college with good leadership skills. He was born into our family with three older sisters.

My other son is Morris and he was born into abject poverty in Liberia, Africa. He came to our house when he was six. He has outstanding coordination, Is an excellent athlete, and is very musically inclined.

Connor and Morris have very different strengths as well as different weaknesses. One of my jobs as a dad is to allow them to be unique and to adjust my expectations accordingly. Ideally I could maximize their strengths while teaching them to mitigate their weaknesses.

I believe God in this respect is similar to a good dad. He doesn’t expect the same from everyone. He actively works with our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aptitudes and abilities. That is one reason not to compare oneself to others as He has specific hopes and desires for each of us.

Likewise reading the bible like every verse currently applies to everyone is foolish. No one could possibly meet that standard. Scripture is best personally handled by asking Him what He wants you to see-to focus on-for yourself.

Jesus knows what He created. He knows your frame as David said. Rest in that knowledge and ask Him to speak individually to you about your walk with Him. He is among many other things very personal.

Your brother in Jesus,

Les

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Ministering to Yourself

“My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be.”

Psalm 42:4, NLT

The Psalms are a classic examples of self-encouragement.

The writer sometimes gave into moments of depression and he would often write encouraging words to uplift his spirit. Today these have become verses or scriptures for us to study and emulate. Read Psalm 42. It is somewhat an unusual portion of scripture, in as the writer addresses his/her own soul.  That alone makes it different. But if we think it out, we become aware of an awesome truth.

“I suggest that the main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self . . .

Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you.

Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?‘ he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: ‘Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.’

Do you know what I mean? If you do not, you have had but little experience . . . We must stand up as this man did and say: ‘Why are you cast down? Why are you disquieted within me?’ . . . instead of listening placidly to him and allowing him to drag you down and depress you. For that is what he will always do if you allow him to be in control.”

D. M. Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure

When I allow myself to indulge in anger, impatience, worry, or pride I open an entrance for Satan to visit my life and run rampant through my mind. He doesn’t have to scheme, plan or even deceive me. He walks right in and scatters my self-centered emotions all over the place.

Notice the flow– My impatience inevitably leads to irritation; irritation turns to anger. Anger seems to lead to hatred. Satan just keeps bringing more and more situations and circumstances in my life with the intention of wreaking havoc with the ‘fruit of the spirit.’ In our weakened state, our hearts are left open to even more assaults. After being attacked over and over we risk becoming again shackled into the chains of spiritual slavery.

“He who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.”

–Proverbs 25:28

The Bible clearly teaches us that we are responsible for our behavior.

As believers we simply don’t have the luxury to allow depressive ‘self-talk’ to go on unedited and unchallenged.  If we think about it, as those prone to depression and mental illness, we must take a stand!  A depressive bout can really harm us (and others) unless we resist it. If we don’t it will only get worse. We end up hurting others and destroying ourselves.

Talking to yourself isn’t for ‘whackos,’ rather it’s one way of resisting the darkness for the believer.

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Spellbound Captives of the Night

 

“We are all infected and impure with sin.
      When we display our righteous deeds,
      they are nothing but filthy rags.
   Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall,
      and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”

Isaiah 64:6, NLT

There are bad things that happen to us— ugly, awful and evil things, that only God himself can explain.  We read theology and we read our Bibles, we listen dutifully to preachers, but we still ‘can’t’ fathom this terrible ‘mystery of iniquity.’ “Filthy rags is what we wear. Our sins have destroyed us.

We are seem to be playing ‘ping-pong’ with the most challenging  issues.  We come to Him, because there is no one left who can answer things that have perplexed everyone else.  Why do we suffer?  Why does evil exist?  Why do people who live in blatant sin, succeed?  Why am I sick all the time?

If God is really God, why doesn’t he just give us an explanation about these questions?  Our title talks about being “spellbound.”  Are we really that inured, attached to a truly sinister evil, that we are being confused about what is real or true?  To be spellbound means we’re being hypnotized by something quite awful.  A cobra rises up, and opens its “hood.”  Its victim is entranced by what it sees in front of it.  He soon becomes supper.

Being held captive seems to be an ordinary occurrence for human beings.  Captivity implies imprisonment.  Usually in a dark, dirty and unpleasant place.  But yet, it intrigues us so much, and after all the “light” is such a boring and dull thing.  We feel great as we trade the truth for lies. We never realize that satanic power has blinded us.

 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV

From this new and fresh influence we come under the control and will of ‘the dark side’.  (And this is not merely “Star Wars” mythos.  It is very real.)  We gradually give ourselves over to the dark. We think we are pretty much impervious to being deceived, but the truth is that we’re already blind. In our lostness we can only stumble through life.

”And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

John 3:19

At this point things have gotten desperately grim.  From a human standpoint, there will be no way to avert the inevitable.  Sin will roll over you, blasting into your life, and worst of all into the hearts of your family.  In a stark way— things get very dark, very fast.

Sin will always enslave.  It will turn on you and rock your world. 

But we are so entranced by what it wants to give us.  It looks so good…one could call it “self-actualizing.”  (Maybe even “liberating!”)  But in one of the many purposes of the Old Testament, is to clarify what happens in people’s hearts when we step down and let the sin and confusion take over.  You could say, that there will be pleasure for a brief season, but  it will always have a very savagely grim and a black conclusion. ”For the wages of sin is death.”

Jesus forgives us, and lifts the darkness. We start to see things as they are, reality breaks out in our minds. He has changed everything. His blood covers us, and we start to walk in what is true. We finally understand what sin has done to us, and we turn from it to what He now gives freely.

“If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will then we may take that it is worth paying.”  

–C.S. Lewis

Your brother in Christ,

Bryan