Category: wisdom

When Brutality Smashes Into Grace

photo, by Jonny Jelnek- Flickr

“Don’t waste your pain; use it to help others.  Your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt.” 

Rick Warren

Nothing I can say will cause your pain to go away. Any words or counsel are nice but weak when applied to that grievous wound or disability. Fellow believers will want to guide you, they mean well. They love Jesus and their hearts are good. I know this.

But it can be like two Tylenol to a man with a broken leg.

Pain, in every way I can think of, is always evil. It raises its head to either nibble at our edges or devour us completely.

I have friends who struggle with migraines and others with Lou Gehrig’s disease.  A few friends have been incredibly injured, and a few others have impaired disabilities.  Two or three have severe diabetes. One has a painful degenerative hip syndrome.  Also, I have a dear elderly saint in her later stages of Alzheimer’s. One of my friends has cerebral palsy. 

(Enough already?!)

I must tell you I also walk in chronic pain and am permanently disabled. My own discipleship hasn’t been easy. Pain has only shown me my need to invite His powerful presence of Jesus, and to become fully His. I’m learning this.

We who hurt deeply are given the option of becoming truly gentle people. 

Gentleness is not an easily given gig– the lessons can be rude and hard and even with possible tears. Faith lifts the rough veil of this ugly circumstance and finds the merciful God beaming with love.

And we are taught the hard reality of human beings. Looking eye to eye we connect with people and grasp their struggling lives. We see their needs and want to alleviate pain.  We want to serve and give and love, finally.

Love shows me how it should be done; and suddenly a profound mystery, I’m loving like Jesus! I’m doing what He would do. Our hearts swell at this revelation. We understand. 

And our hearts will decide that issue. Is it real?

So few really understand and discern, and even fewer can help you. Love them all. Love Jesus. Stay broken, gentle, and faithful to Loving Father.

A few years ago some asked me if I had the faith to be healed, they challenge us, “where’s your faith, brother?” 

Hmm. But what about having faith in God even when you stay sick? To actively trust the special kindness of Him no matter what?  

If you had never known afflictions in your own life, how do you think that you can properly touch those ‘nail-scarred’ hands which Jesus meets you with?  And the apostles, and all those martyrs from every generation in an unbroken line of suffering. 

And what about their crosses?

Our own?? 

“Ah, afflicted one, your disabilities were meant to unite with God’s enabling, your weakness to combine with His power. God’s grace is at hand –sufficient– and at its best when human weakness is most profound.”

F.B. Meyerbry-signat (1)

 

You Can Only Come Through the Door

“I am the door, and the person who enters through me will be saved and will be able to come in and go out and find pasture.” 

John 10:9

This is powerful–its implications can rattle the windows! I sometimes struggle with depression, and sometimes with an assurance of my salvation.  Even after 40+ years of walking with God, my mind boggles at my salvation.  But I read this and it tells me that Jesus is the door. 

I need to understand that Jesus has to be the entrance for every real seeker.  We must cross over God’s own threshold to find eternal life. 

Philosophy and religion are some of the crowbars that many are using to force open this locked door. 

People are doing their best, but the door remains solidly shut.  There isn’t any other way in.  If the door is closed, no one can open it.  Access is restricted to those who will come through the door that is the Lord Jesus.

There is total forgiveness waiting for anyone who enters through this door. 

A transformation of the heart is now given to all who come in properly.  Once we enter through Jesus,  our life opens up and we can live lives of real love and goodness. This is the Gospel, and at last, we understand what life is really all about.

We now know what is real, and what is not. 

We have been outrageously blessed! Jesus Christ has the keys, and He has opened the door for us. It was once securely locked, but now we can step right in, it is now unlocked for everyone who will put their trust in Him. We can enter in, and we will find everything we were looking for. Our pasture is waiting. We can step into a place that has been prepared just for us.

“God saw in the cross of His Son the only door by which he could enter to give a blessing to sinners.”

 -G.V. Wigram

Someone Please, Light My Darkness

“Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
       Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death.”  

Psalm 13:3, NIV

God is the sole developer of light. 

He creates it and then assigns it to whomever He chooses.  He is the proprietor and the sole creator of its properties.  Without Him actively bestowing light on us we would have no access to its power or its benefits.  He holds the exclusive patent.

As Adam’s progeny, we have experienced a light moratorium. 

“The unfolding of your words gives light;
       it gives understanding to the simple.”  

Psalm 119:30, NIV

History shows people to be amazingly compliant and susceptible to dictators and men with power.  We seem to follow leaders with sinister and strange purposes and agendas. History shows it over and over.  We just can’t grasp what is true and what is real.

Darkened by our sin, we struggle throughout our blinded lives, unable to understand or grasp what is our real purpose.  Meaning completely eludes us.  However, we are directed by the Psalmist to open our hearts to the gracious gift of light.  It illuminates us, giving us a sense of what is real and how life truly unfolds.  The word “understanding” from our text is critical.  No matter how stupid and pathetic we have become, the Word of God penetrates our fog and gives us a sense of what is true and real.

Let it unfold, let it open up in your understanding. 

Like an umbrella on a foggy and rainy day, when it opens it will cover you.  Notice that the source of lit-up truth emanates from the “words”.  Place yourself in His Word, let it pour over you, and let it bring you to the place of joyful acceptance.

Jesus has come as the “Good Shepherd”. 

Those of us who are being led into His Grace and Truth are finding the light.  He is revealing to us a definitive understanding of truth.  And we need truth desperately. Let Him lead you.

Bryan Continue reading “Someone Please, Light My Darkness”

When Teachability Rides a Chariot

I think this post will wander around a bit, we’ll see if the Father will speak to us somehow.

I really think our lives are made up of the decisions we’re making. At least, it sometimes sees that way.

Some decisions are like ‘forks’ in the road.  They’re made and then they shunt us in another direction. Most are minor–(will it be McDonalds or Pizza Hut?) But the biggies really alter us–very quickly we see that the road is going to take us in a radically different path.

Sometimes, if we’re honest, we will admit to backtracking; retracing our route back to the point we turned.  A lot of time it’s too late, and the moment has past. But we will sometimes learn that sometimes even our detours are part of the journey. (Amazing, isn’t? But He controls it all, and that’s comforting.)

I think I’m starting to learn how to receive correction from others. 

I’ve been mulling over the decision of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:30-31, he wanted to understand the truth:

“So when Philip ran toward the chariot, he heard the man reading from Isaiah the prophet [on his Kindle]. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
 31 He answered, “How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?” Then he invited Philip to climb in and sit with him.”

We see here such a very ‘thoughtful humbleness’– a teachableness of the heart that this eunuch seems to have learned.  He is confident enough in himself to acknowledge that he just doesn’t know. He invites Philip to a Bible study in the chariot.

We are responsible for our receptivity to truth. 

It’s our personal decision to either seek or not seek, to learn, or not to learn.  No one else can do this for us.  We come to a decision point and we go the way things seem to direct us, or we don’t. Again, we must choose.

Sometimes to not make a decision, is a decision.

The book of Proverbs is saturated with ideas on being guided by our humility when it comes in contact with truth.  Furthermore, there are many warnings about receiving correction and reproof gracefully.  For me, I’m learning slowly to receive hard counsel.

When my wife and I made the decision to work in the migrant camps in Mexico there was one elder who kept saying “no!” At first it was a real issue for us. We sort of resented it. But we began to see the blessing of his resistance. It caused us to really analyze our decision, and “count the cost.” We were stepping into a very hard place, and we needed that voice. We were being called to break in “new ground.” It was to be a challenge.

It seems that scriptural truth is almost always negative when it’s first encountered. It often irritates more than it comforts.

It often will not sit well, and I will try to shake it off.  But truth can be remarkably persistent.  ‘Forgive your brother’, the Holy Spirit says.  And you say right away, ‘Not a chance!’  But, give it time, and the Word will soften rock.  If you respond properly, humbly, you be able to make the right decision.

One more thing, Jesus told us in Matthew 18:3,

“I promise you this. If you don’t change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

We’ll need to be a complete alteration in our hearts if we are to accommodate His command.  Becoming a child is more difficult as an adult– then becoming an adult is for a child.  Becoming small again takes a great amount of brokenness and it’s never really mastered.

God fully intends to work with you in this. 

God wants you to learn teachableness. He brings others to direct you. The Holy Spirit ignites the Word that’ll light your path. He doesn’t seem to ever give up.  He is wonderfully persistent–He never really does give up.

“The intelligent man is always open to new ideas. In fact, he looks for them.”

Proverbs 18:15, LB

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