testing – Broken Believers

Rip Tide Lessons

In the late 1990s, my wife Lynn and I were based in a mission station about 200 miles south of Tijuana, Mexico. We would be working in Baja in the sleepy little village of San Telmo. It was hard work, but sometimes we would take day trips to a beach on the Pacific Ocean. One beach in particular, was a favorite place for surfers.

One day we headed out for some sand, surf and sea. Little did I know that day, that I would almost drown. Yes, the waves were bigger then usual, but we set up camp and our two children combed the beach, under our watchful eyes. After a while, I gathered up my ‘boogie board’ and headed for the water.

I had caught several nice waves, and was having a wonderful time. But all of a sudden things got scary. I was working the waves on the north side of the beach, when suddenly– I lost control. The current began to pull me away from the shore. I doubled my paddling efforts, but still I was being pulled out.

I became really afraid. The beach was getting very small, and I still was being pulled out. It was at this point, I began to pray. I had never experienced a rip tide before. I really wasn’t sure what was happening.

In retrospect, I was being ‘schooled.’ I learned more in 15 minutes of stark terror, then in many months of classroom teaching.

1) I learned that I’m not in control of my life, there are things completely beyond me. I had zero control over what was happening. But often life is like that.

2) God can take my life whenever He chooses. He decides when I leave this earthly existence. “My times are in His hands,” the psalmist declared.

3) I needed to admit my profound ignorance of many things that are intensely important to know. These gaps in my knowledge will often take me where I don’t want to go.

4) Stay on your board! Cling to it. You WILL drown if you get separated from it. You can also use it to rest on when your arms feel like they are going to fall off.

5) And finally ~~start~~ to swim parallel with the beach, NOT toward it! The current is very likely 30-40 yards wide. The rising panic will probably keep you focused on the beach. You cannot overcome a riptide by trying to paddle harder.

6) If you make it through this, the beach is beautiful. You will be exhausted. Your friends will not grasp how close you came to drowning. They have no idea what has just transpired, and you realize you can’t explain what just happened. But all of a sudden, you have lost all enthusiasm for the board and the waves.

Often it feels like my depression a massive riptide. To fight it directly is disastrous, and pulls me away. I look back and realize that my experience has given me valuable things, an understanding that nothing can replace.

All about riptides can be found here.

Mary Magdalene

“Dear woman, why are you crying?” Jesus asked her. “Who are you looking for?”

She thought he was the gardener. “Sir,” she said, “if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will go and get him.”

¹⁶“Mary!” Jesus said.

She turned to him and cried out, “Rabboni!” (which is Hebrew for “Teacher”).

John 20:15-16, NLT

A word, a name– and when He speaks it, it crackles. “Mary!” His recognition and affection saturates His greeting.

And instantly Mary ignites. Her love for Jesus is instantly awakened. Her heart bounds to Him, and she can see no one else. Simply, “Mary”, and her routine universe is changed forever.

The Lord does not see masses, or crowds.

He sees people, individuals that have names. He simply doesn’t accept the idea of mass communications to make disciples. His heart is for individuals. He does not make styrofoam cups, He makes individual people. And that is exactly how He responds.

Her immediate response is just as forthcoming. “Rabboni”. The simple Hebrew word for “teacher”. Obviously her relationship with Jesus has infused this word with much more than meets the eye. As we trace her history with Jesus we develop a deep understanding into her walk.

You might say that Mary was well acquainted with spiritual things— for her it was almost exclusively evil. Mark 16 tells us of seven demons that had tortured her. Jesus had cast these dark powers out of her. She understood the dark torment Satan once had over her.

Mary speaks just one profound word.

‘Rabboni.’ That word has deep and strong connotations. Primarily, it has the concept of someone superior and yet exercising that gift in a quality way. Mary has been given a quite exceptional gift–an opportunity to be a student who sits at Jesus’ feet. Teacher.

Her ‘turning’ to Jesus is remarkable, but she is still not quite there yet. However she turns to look at Him who now has risen out of death. She already has evaluated all of this and she decides to commit. Mary has arrived at the very place Jesus has chosen for her.

Jesus fully intends to make us His disciples.

Embracing Him as God is a serious and brave step. Actually, it is a ‘reality shifting’ concept that will change us. That does not mean we will stop struggling. But what it does mean is that certain things are now established.

Can you trust Him that far?

“Christ will always accept the faith that puts its trust in Him.”

Andrew Murray

Job’s Friends, They Want to Help!

By John Piper

(The following is an edited transcript of the audio.)

Can we learn something from Job’s friends about how to help the hurting?

Absolutely. Those first seven days were their golden hour. If they had stopped there they would have been heroes, I think, because they would have shown compassion and patience. And that’s what we should learn.

When you walk into a horrific calamity you should be really slow to speak and quick to listen. You should be quick to cry, quick to hold, and quick to meet needs, bring meals, and wait upon the Lord. The theological wrestling comes later, probably. It’s different with different people.

But I think the lesson we learn from the progress of the book of Job is that while those three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—were sitting in dust and ashes, aching with their friend Job, he was helped by them. And many people are helped just by the loving presence of another.

I don’t think this nullifies the importance of truth. Let me give you an example.

I’m a colleague here with Tom Steller, who has been with me for 24 years. And Tom and I have sometimes said to each other, “It would be great to stay together long enough to die together, Tom.” And depending upon which one of us comes to visit the other in the hospital at our dying moment, we know, because of 24 or (perhaps by then) 54 years together, we don’t have to say a word. It’s all been said.

We have a common theology.

Neither of us will have to preach to the other in order to fix their ideas. We will all know that God reigns, God is good, God is loving, and God is wise. We’re perplexed, but you don’t need to preach. Let’s just take each other’s hands and pray and fight this fight of faith together.

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Friends Advice (momsfirstscreenn.wordpress.com)
Job Intercedes for his friends desiringgod.org

Fire Walking [Protection]

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
When you cross rivers, you will not drown.
When you walk through fire, you will not be burned,
nor will the flames hurt you.”

Isaiah 43:2, NCV

There is a unique immunity that is given to the simple disciple. Believers find that suddenly they have been inoculated against a reality that others can’t understand. Passing through the waters, we find the divine presence. We discover it and find that it covers us.

Daniel tells us of three men dropped into a super-heated furnace. Surviving was impossible, and yet they felt no heat or flame while inside. That is a tremendous thing for believers to understand. (Daniel 3:19-27)

Having Him to cover us is a profound thing. There are many reasons this should not be happening to us, and not given any serious thought. And yet He appears out of nowhere and declares that we are completely immune to every attack against our desperate souls.

Jesus watches over us. He concentrates His focus on us, and we find a strength that is almost absurd, something that doesn’t make any sense at all. He covers us from all the ugliness that could be focused on us. A barrier is put around us. His care protects us and shields us from insidious attacks on our very vulnerable hearts.

Isaiah 43 declares that there is a protective grace that surrounds our soul.

We encounter a sense that He is there and that He will not let anything happen to us. This security is not from anything we produce, maintain or manufacture. He brings it to us without any logical reason. It’s called “grace” and it gives us immense protection.

This world generates a lot of ugliness. We must enter and pass through a whole lot of difficulty and pain. Water and fire, in abundance, are things that will happen to us. We will deal with these things, and work our way through them. One thing needs to be understood, His spirit in us resists being controlled by sin.

We travel through intense times when our faith seems ludicrous when it seems weak and illogical. But somehow we make it, and we will pass through this and other challenges. He intervenes and brings us safety and strength. We are indeed survivors, and we pass through all evil and darkness without being scorched or singed.

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

Philippians 1:6, NLT

Tag: testing