Relax, Sit back, Enjoy the Ride

What is God doing? Is He really in charge? Can’t we really run our own lives better than anyone else?
One day my wife, Marty, was taking Andy to school, and Becca was in the car seat. On the way home Becca would complain about it being too hot, then it was too cold, then the sun was shinning on her, then she wanted to go somewhere other than home. No matter what was happening, it wasn’t right. They were stopped at a stop light and Marty turned around and said, “Becca, stop complaining, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.” Becca was quiet. The light turned green, Marty started driving and the Lord said to her, “That’s just what I want you to do.”
What a lesson. I want to quit complaining, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. After all, we have the perfect driver!

Is God With Me, even Here?

A chaplain in a jail told in his last letter about a woman who was feeling lonely and stressed. Wondering if God was even present, she started to pray the Prayer of Jabez from I Chronicles 4:10. Chaplain John had been doing a study on that passage in her facility for almost a month. When she got to the part that says, “May your hand be with me,” something caught her eye, and she looked out the small window in her cell. What she saw inspired her to write this poem:

I woke this morning with a heavy sigh,

Red eyes, puffy face, all night did I cry

Trying to find my way thorough this world,

Fighting off Demons that haunt this little girl

Can I really make it another day?

My heart is screaming as I begin to pray.

And then I saw it from the corner of my eye

A brilliant Lavender orange sunrise in the sky

And then cam our Father’s voice sill and clear

This sunrise is for You, I heard your prayer, I am here.

Pretty well sums up what we have been talking about. God is here. God is with us. II Corinthians 4:8-9 tells us: We are pressed on every side by troubles, but not crushed and broken. We are perplexed because we don't know why things happen as they do, but we don't give up and quit. We are hunted down, but God never abandons us. We get knocked down, but we get up again and keep going.

Yes, He is with us!

Why God? Can You Tell Me WHY??

Why God, is this happening to me? Why aren’t you doing something to stop it? Do you care about me? Do you even know where I am? Why me?

Sound like questions you have asked God when things haven’t gone the way you thought they should? What do you do when “bad” things happen to you?

The year was 1984, late summer. I thought things were going poorly with us. I thought we were experiencing a “bad” period in our lives, at least in my life. I was frustrated. I yelled at God. I told Him that He didn’t care about us, that we were left alone and deserted. In my frustration, I yelled, “God, do you even know where we are?”

Then I was quiet. About 10 minutes later, God answered. He not only answered, He let me know the source of the discontent, the frustration, the despair. He simply said, “Why don’t you be Bob, and let me be God. OK?”

That was it. I was trying to figure out what was best for my life. I was trying to get God to fit in with my plans.

I’ve had that problem for most of my life. My high school yearbook has this under my senior picture, “Now if I were president …” When I let God be God, and I am content to be Bob, I no longer have to has why. I no longer have to figure it out because that isn’t my job. That is His job, I’ve given that over to Him. He loves me more than I can know while I live on this earth.

No longer is the question, “Why?” It becomes, “Now what?” I don’t need to try and be God when there is one much better suited for it already in that position. “Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10.

A Few More Things to Help Deal with ...

fear, worry that confronts us and confounds us.

#2. Memorize I John 5:13. We know we have eternal life.

#3. Memorize Romans 5:8-11.

#4. Memorize Romans 8:31-39. Make a special note of verse 38. The Living Bible says, “For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love.”

If He loves us, and nothing can separate us from His love, then what can happen to us that He is not in control of? If the maker of the universe loves us and is in control of all of the events in our lives, then what do we have to fear? The choice is clear, if I am convinced that nothing can ever separate me from His love, then I do not fear. If I fear, it shows that I am not convinced that nothing can separate me from His great love.

When the fear comes, state the facts as we know them. Recite again #2, 3, & 4. That is not positive thinking, it is simply stating facts. It is stating truth. It doesn’t make it happen, it simply lets our ears hear truth, and as we hear it, it becomes a part of our lives, and fear departs. We love God, we know He loves us.

“Perfect love casts out all fear.” Or as the Living Bible says, I John 4:18, “We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might to do us, and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us.”

This will take care of the why questions we sometimes ask when “bad” things happen to us. A far better question to ask instead of why is “what now?” It has happened. What am I going to do now? If I am fully convinced that He really loves me, then I don’t need to know the answer to the why question, I only need to know what do I do now? And God will let us know that as we wait on Him and seek His presence. I am convinced that He really loves me. There is nothing that can happen that can change that.

There are things that happen, however, that cause me to react. Things happen, I get upset, I react, I become angry. When that happens, I go back and go through steps 2, 3, and 4. I realize again that God loves me more than life itself. He proved that by dying for me on the cross. What I am going through is small compared to that. He really loves me. Forgive me, Father, for those times when I don’t comprehend that as I should. Thanks for loving me when I live like I should and thanks for loving me when I fail. You really do love me. That is amazing.

Fear & Worry in a Christian's Life

A constant theme I’ve found for the past two months from pastors, from reading, from listening to people is fear. Not the fear that debilitates, but the fear that is like a constant nagging, prodding. It is like we have a cloud that follows us around, hanging over our heads. It is the worry, the dread about something happening to me or my loved ones that I will not like.

Such a state of mind should not be a part of the Believer’s life. And yet, I’ve heard the fear, the worry from people in the church. Fear, worry is really (unless it prods us into action to deal with the situation about which we are afraid), our failure to trust God. Not a failure to trust in God, but a failure to trust God. We can trust in God for our salvation and still not trust God with our lives. But why would anyone trust God for eternal life, but not trust Him for our daily life? Yet that is what fear says we are doing.

Is there a solution to this problem? Is there a way to overcome fear? I am so glad you asked, because there is. We don’t need to live in fear any longer.

Step #1. Read Job 1 & 2. Underline the passages where Job gives thanks to God, where he worships God, where he continues to trust God even though all the “bad” things that happen to him and his family. Then read Job 38:1 – 42:6. This is God’s answer to all of Job’s “WHY?” questions. When the why comes to you, remember God’s answer to Job. It is the same answer He gives us when “bad” things happen to us and we ask why.

More steps to rid our lives of fear are coming soon.

A House or a Home?

We traveled back to Michigan this past week to visit family and finish up cleaning out the farm house where Marty was raised, and her dad lived all his life. He never lived in any other home. The last time he laid down to sleep was in the room where he was born. Quite a history in that house, but back then, it wasn't a house, it was a home. Marty had been back in April and her siblings and her did a lot of work going through the collection of their parent's lifetime. As the things were sorted, many memories came flooding back. Her parents spent their lives serving and ministering to others. For the first 26 years of their lives, they were never alone in the house. They took care of parents, and other relatives. Theirs was a lifetime of giving to others and serving Jesus.

This time, however, when I entered the house, the dinning room was empty, except for a love seat. As I looked at the now empty house, I said, “The life is gone. This house is dead.” The house had for over 128 years teemed with life, and now it was experiencing something that had never happened to it since it was built, it was empty, devoid of live, purpose, meaning. Not that an object can really have meaning, it represented meaning in the lives of those who lived there. The life was gone. So much meaning 6 months ago, now, nothing.

Is my life making a difference? Does my house have life? Is it a home? Or just some sticks and drywall? What about my life? What is it? Do people see Jesus in me? Without that, what do we have?

We went to the zoo a while back. We saw a variety of animals. The walrus was big and pretty clumsy on land, but could really swim. There were birds there that swam and walked and flew. Some went under water to eat, others ate on land. Still others ate while floating on the water. I can hear it now, "Wow! What powers of observation!"

Well, yes, which makes it really amazing that anyone can believe that all this variety came about from just one glob in a murky (or not so murky) soup billions of years ago. How could such variety of species come from one glob? And how in the world, where there was nothing, did there appear at the same moment, a male and female of the same species so they could continue to propagate. How can that be? For millions of years, nothing, then all of a sudden, male and female of the same species appeared simultaneously. The odds of that happening are so great as to be non-existent. One would be hard enough, but two, of opposite sex, compatible with each other? Can anyone really believe that?

If you do, then try taking the transition from ape to man (and woman). There are no transition fossils to be found. If we are constantly evolving, wouldn't you think there would be some evolving going on somewhere that we could observe? There isn't any. Not even any from much lower species to just a step above. Not one, let alone two at the same time so the "new" species can continue.

With all the variety I saw at the zoo, with all the different kinds of reproduction in the world and the way they continue to remain the same, makes me realize that there is someone who created all this. I am not, we are not, random atoms of chance. We were designed, created by someone more powerful than we are. Once that fact hits a person, the very next thing I would want to do is to find out who that being is. Why did He do all this? And the more pressing question is this: What He wants from me? I wouldn't rest until I found out.