Recently, a friend and I met for a catch-up lunch. As so often happens, the conversation drifted to events in the lives of our children and grand-children. Soon we were enveloped in the low-frequency melodrama that is modern family life, along with the seeming inability, in many areas, to do much about any of it.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him? (Psalm 8:3,4)
Several years ago now, our little neighborhood Bible study piled in our cars and drove an hour to a nearby city. Our destination was a day-long conference led by a woman who for over forty years had been a world-impacting teacher and author of Bible studies.
Why be a psalmist? Are you struggling with dark thoughts and troublesome feelings? I strove this way for over forty years. I prayed but wasn’t honest with God about my feelings.
Fear of failure.
Fear of people.
Fear of being different.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of being known.
Fear of death.
Fear of the future.
Walking the paved dam between two small lakes, I noticed a family of ducks paddling toward shore. Noticeably, the mother duck led the family while the father duck anchored the end of the line. Several ducklings swam effortlessly between the two.
During a small gathering of women in a weekly Bible study group, I asked a question for each to answer.
“What allows you to share your faith story with others, whether Jesus-followers or not?”
“Grace. God’s grace.” Everyone answered the same around the table.
Doubts creep into my mind as quickly as weeds pop up in my flowerbeds.
I doubt my abilities, faith, feelings, God, and thoughts. Sometimes they are fleeting, but usually they result in anxiety.
When my husband and I surrendered to ministry, our lives became harder than ever before. Everything started breaking, including cars, furniture and appliances…big stuff on a very limited budget.
“What if I can’t have a baby? What do I do with the rest of my life? That’s my purpose in life!” That was my prayer at the altar that day. My husband and I were facing the heartache of infertility.
Only a few times can I say I heard, without a doubt, the inaudible voice of God speaking to my heart. This was one of those times.
What are your greatest fears? It’s not often I’ve feared for my life but several memories remind me I’ve had a few.
Traveling home from Belize with one of my 10 year old twins as we flew through a terrible storm was terrifying. I was not sure we would make it safely back to Houston.
The disappointment, the losses, the failures, the fears, the betrayals, the waiting and waiting. Why? What good is this in the life of a believer??
Have you ever noticed how God speaks in multiple ways when He is trying to get a point across to us? Often when I read scripture and God reveals a new truth, or reminds me of something He previously revealed and I have ignored, I begin to see the same truth in other ways.
Division. It was tearing us apart again.
Are you concerned over division in your country, city, or neighborhood?
Division in the world, although sad, is more understandable.
But what about division in your own home or church?
Maybe even division in your own heart?
At times, I am too hard on myself.
I focus on all my failures. I can make a long list in my mind.
While focusing on the lies, I forget the truth.
Have you read a note to yourself from the past and later… it spoke to you in a new way?
This happens to me sometimes.
As I write to encourage others, months later the same message has a new meaning to me.
Some days it seems everything goes… wrong.
Does this ever happen to you?
No matter what I try, nothing works out right.
Recently on a day like that, Jesus brought this Scripture to my attention:
I quietly shut the door behind me. I needed to be alone… to pray.
My heart was hurting from a difficult conversation.
I needed to process.
What had just happened?
Friends, “churchy” talk is easy; but having the courage to live as a Disciple of Christ requires careful examination of one’s lifestyle.
“Don’t blink,” cautioned the technician at the ophthalmologist’s office, all the while flashing a light directly in my eyes, making it almost impossible not to blink. I could not stop thinking, “Just how much longer will this misery last?”
