I am reading an awesome book that my son loaned me in God’s perfect timing of course! It is by Mark Batterson, In A PIT WITH A LION ON A SNOWY DAY. I highly recommend it! One of the key points of the book is this: God is in the recycling business. He uses our pain for someone elses gain. Just like Jesus! He endured the pain and suffered the shame for our gain. This book is so rich with practical wisdom for us! The basis of the book is the story of Benaiah, son of Jehoiada from Kabzeel.
2nd Samuel 23: 20-23
20 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab’s best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion. 21 And he struck down a huge Egyptian. Although the Egyptian had a spear in his hand, Benaiah went against him with a club. He snatched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear. 22 Such were the exploits of Benaiah son of Jehoiada; he too was as famous as the three mighty men. 23 He was held in greater honor than any of the Thirty, but he was not included among the Three. And David put him in charge of his bodyguard.
Pastor Batterson goes on to talk about our perspective and how we look at the trials and God in the midst of them. Do we see them as Gods punishment or worse, His lack of love and goodness- Or do we see them as examples of His love for us, His power and goodness- and platforms for Him to turn our trials and pain into gold for His glory and our holiness.
I firmly believe that the trials and pain of the last 10 years… God has utilized for my refinement, His glory, and preparation for the works He has prepared for me. Besides the talents He has given me to utilize for this “work”, more importantly, He has given me many different experiences of pain and suffering from which to bless others during their times of pain. Just like when we go to school… we take a variety of classes that give us book knowledge but the classes that best prepare us for our careers are the hands on, live experiences in the work place.
There is no teacher like that of experience. I think my favorite name for Jesus is Emmanuel…. GOD WITH US. After all, He is God, and He could have fixed the mess we were in some other way… but He chose to become one of us… to experience pain, suffering, sadness, loss and separation from His Abba.
God is a verb, because He is love, and love is action. So, it stands to reason, that He wants his kids living this out- loving our neighbor as ourselves. Dieing to self and living out His love like Jesus did. The only way that we will be successful at this is if we will abide in Him. “apart from me, you can do nothing”- Jesus knew- He walked this out with His Father.
One of my favorite songs is Trials turned to Gold- by Keith Green. I have included it for your blessing.
Trials Turned to Gold- By Keith Green
He’s brought me here
where things are clear
and trials turn to gold
He’s shared with me
His victory
He won in days of old
oh Lord, i don’t deserve
the riches of Your world
but You changed my filthy rags
to linen white as snow
the view from here
is nothing near
to what it is for You
i’ve tried to see
Your plan for me
but i only acted like i knew
oh Lord, forgive the times
i’ve tried to read your mind
cause You said if i’d be still
then i would hear Your voice
my Lord, my King
my urge to sing
and praise the things above
now words could say
the glorious way
You’ve changed me with Your love
He’s brought me here
where things are clear
and trials turned to gold
Prayer- Abba, Jesus and Spirit divine… thank-you for my trials, for all the tears, the pain and suffering. I know I have only experienced the start of what you will do with these trials. How you will use them for gold in peoples lives, for your glory! I long for the day when I will fully know your amazing grace, love and favor. To be whole and complete in relationship with you! Until that glorious day..help me to abide in your love and walk it out! Love- your Son, Jon
Well, I was 5 minutes late to putting more coins in the parking meter! And the result…a $14.00 parking ticket! Oh, that just irks me so! I think parking meters are of the devil. Its just bad business to charge customers to park. Anyways, today’s devotional is about patience. So, I am thankful for the opportunity to put patience into practice in a tangible way. Yes, my timing was off and I paid for it! Thankfully, when waiting on God… His timing is never “off”. I can trust that He will not tarry too long nor rush ahead too soon but will show up right on time!
It is interesting that two of the devotionals I have read over the last week from Streams in the Desert have been from Psalm 37. This Psalm is one I have been standing on over the last 4 years. I have added them for your benefit as well.
Why is patience so hard for us? I think it is a deep seeded need to control. Which is opposite of living in relationship. In a healthy relationship there is an absence of control or maybe at best in the human condition… an awareness of our controlling ways. Control is a desire for power which is at the root of our fallen nature. The only way for us to find freedom from control is in relationship that frees us from our need for control. Where unconditional love and trust exist… where each person is looking out for the needs of the other… where there is true servitude. At our best, we humans will fall short of this in human to human relating. Only in God, can we be truly safe to give up control.
Prayer… Father, Son and Spirit.. I desire to walk in relationship with you. To daily abide in your love and goodness. Help me to know how lost I am without you. Thank-you that I don’t have to measure up or feel pressure to be good.. to truly know that there is nothing I have to do for you to love me. NOTHING!! I have been so wounded and deceived. Continue to heal my heart and renew my mind. I invite you, gracious and Loving trinity to walk in relationship with me. Revive me. free me up! I love you. Jon
Wait With Patience
“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7).
Have you prayed and prayed and waited and waited, and still there is no manifestation?
Are you tired of seeing nothing move? Are you just at the point of giving it all up? Perhaps you have not waited in the right way? This would take you out of the right place the place where He can meet you.
“With patience wait” (Rom. 8:25). Patience takes away worry. He said He would come, and His promise is equal to His presence. Patience takes away your weeping. Why feel sad and despondent? He knows your need better than you do, and His purpose in waiting is to bring more glory out of it all. Patience takes away self-works. The work He desires is that you “believe” (John 6:29), and when you believe, you may then know that all is well. Patience takes away all want. Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival.
Patience takes away all weakening. Instead of having the delaying time, a time of letting go, know that God is getting a larger supply ready and must get you ready too. Patience takes away all wobbling. “Make me stand upon my standing” (Daniel 8:18, margin). God’s foundations are steady; and when His patience is within, we are steady while we wait. Patience gives worship. A praiseful patience sometimes “long-suffering with joyfulness” (Col. 1:11) is the best part of it all. “Let (all these phases of) patience have her perfect work” (James 1:4), while you wait, and you will find great enrichment. –C. H. P.
Hold steady when the fires burn,
When inner lessons come to learn,
And from this path there seems no turn
“Let patience have her perfect work.”
–L.S.P.
Trust and Rest
“Trust also in Him” (Ps. 37:3).
The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.
Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us “trust also in him,” through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seemings, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still “trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.” The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.
“Trust and rest when all around thee
Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
Wait for God and trust and rest.
“Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest.”
Now, Hold on! I am not placing myself in the company of these giants of the faith….or am I? Do we think that they are “above us” and out of our league? I think not… Just like the disciples, they were ordinary people doing the extraordinary by grace through faith. Each of them went through dark times and experienced extraordinary challenges that required big faith in a BIG God. If we don’t believe that God can be BIG in and through our lives then, chances are…He won’t and Satan will have realized his goal of rendering us ineffective for the Kingdom of God. I especially relate to Moses and Abraham because they were late bloomers like me! And I also relate to Esther, because she became so aware that God had placed her there for “such a time as this”! As I have walked through the last 6 years I have sensed God was preparing me for something special- bigger than I could imagine! But it has been the experiences of the last 6 months that have taken me to a much greater level of expectancy and understanding of what God is up to. I believe He has prepared me for “such a time as this”.
Here is an update on Divine appointments….. They have come back in abundance! People are coming out of the woodwork talking with me or around me about Colorado. Most of them have been at Kudu coffee shop where I do my blogging. But last week I went to the Christian book store to pick up my next John Eldredge read, Epic. And the gal that rang up my purchase had just moved here from Breckenridge! By the way, I highly recommend this book. I will soon blog about all of the influences I believe the Lord has used to prepare me for this adventure I call my Wild Goose Chase. I close with today’s devotional from Streams in the Desert. This one speaks of the faith we need to live extraordinary lives like those who have preceded us. Jesus spoke of the greater works we would do after He left and sent the Holy Spirit/ The Wild Goose…… Aah.. the church bells are ringing….Joyful, joyful we adore thee. Yes, Lord we adore the that you humbled yourself and came near that we may have life to the full when we abide and trust in thee.
Prayer-
Thank-you for the dark, dark hours I have logged with thee by my side. For it is through the darkness that we are perfected and made more like thee. In the darkness of my mothers’ womb you formed me in your image and in the darkness of life you refined me to reflect you more fully. You were there all the time!
Night of Pure Faith
“Lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him” (Gen. 15:12).
The sun at last went down, and the swift, eastern night cast its heavy veil over the scene. Worn out with the mental conflict, the watchings, and the exertions of the day, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, and in that sleep is soul was oppressed with a dense and dreadful darkness, such as almost stifled him, and lay like a nightmare upon his heart. Do you understand something of the horror of that darkness? When some terrible sorrow which seems so hard to reconcile with perfect love, crushes down upon the soul, wringing from it all its peaceful rest in the pitifulness of God, and launching it on a sea unlit by a ray of hope; when unkindness, and cruelty maltreat the trusting heart, till it begins to doubt whether there be a God overhead who can see and still permit–these know something of the “horror of great darkness.” It is thus that human life is made up; rightness and gloom; shadow and sun; long tracks of cloud, succeeded by brilliant glints of light, and amid all Divine justice is working out its own schemes, affecting others equally with the individual soul which seems the subject of special discipline. O ye who are filled with the horror of great darkness because of God’s dealings with mankind, learn to trust that infallible wisdom, which is co-assessor with immutable justice; and know that He who passed through the horror of the darkness of Calvary, with the cry of forsakenness, is ready to bear you company through the valley of the shadow of death till you see the sun shining upon its further side. Let us, by our Forerunner, send forward our anchor, Hope, within the veil that parts us from the unseen; where it will grapple in ground and will not yield, but hold until the day dawns, and we follow it into the haven guaranteed to us by God’s immutable counsel. –F. B. Meyer
The disciples thought that that angry sea separated them from Jesus. Nay, some of them thought worse than that; they thought that the trouble that had come upon them was a sign that Jesus had forgotten all about them, and did not care for them. Oh, dear friend, that is when troubles have a sting, when the devil whispers, “God has forgotten you; God has forsaken you”; when your unbelieving heart cries as Gideon cried, “If the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?” The evil has come upon you to bring the Lord nearer to you. The evil has not come upon you to separate you from Jesus, but to make you cling to Him more faithfully, more tenaciously, more simply. –F. S. Webster, M.A.
Never should we so abandon ourselves to God as when He seems to have abandoned us. Let us enjoy light and consolation when it is His pleasure to give it to us, but let us not attach ourselves to His gifts, but to Himself; and when He plunges us into the night of pure faith, let us still press on through the agonizing darkness. Oh, for faith that brings the triumph When defeat seems strangely near! Oh, for faith that brings the triumph Into victory’s ringing cheer– Faith triumphant; knowing not defeat or fear. –Herbert Booth
This past Sunday I was at a local coffee shop working on a post for this blog when the Spirit prompted me to look up the days devotional from Streams in the Desert- I have the website bookmarked on my blackberry. Well, for whatever reason, I got distracted and did not do it. Well, it has been a tough week for waiting on the Lord. Yesterday, after I showered from my run, I laid on my bed to cool off- a must do in the swamp during the summer! While laying there I was talking to the Lord about how I felt. When you specifically hear from the Lord like I did, IE. Tim Tebow Foundation and Colorado, the delemma becomes….. When Lord, will this happen? Now, that’s the million dollar question! My logic tells me that God will move us this summer. I know He likes to wait til the last minute and we are coming up on that, in my opinion. I have my house for sale and I just moved my college student to his new digs down the road. Okay, God it’s showtime! Or is it? So, this has been my struggle/ our struggle. It’s like we are on this never-ending runway taxing and going no where! It feels like we are close but yet so far.
So, while I was having one of those David vs. God moments yesterday, I heard the Spirit prompt me to look up that devotional from Sunday. Well, here it is……
Trust and Rest
“Trust also in Him” (Ps. 37:3).
The word trust is the heart word of faith. It is the Old Testament word, the word given to the early and infant stage of faith. The word faith expresses more the act of the will, the word belief the act of the mind or intellect, but trust is the language of the heart. The other has reference more to a truth believed or a thing expected.
Trust implies more than this, it sees and feels, and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love. So let us “trust also in him,” through all the delays, in spite of all the difficulties, in the face of all the denials, notwithstanding all the seemings, even when we cannot understand the way, and know not the issue; still “trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.” The way will open, the right issue will come, the end will be peace, the cloud will be lifted, and the light of an eternal noonday shall shine at last.
“Trust and rest when all around thee
Puts thy faith to sorest test;
Let no fear or foe confound thee,
Wait for God and trust and rest.
“Trust and rest with heart abiding,
Like a birdling in its nest,
Underneath His feathers hiding,
Fold thy wings and trust and rest.”
While I was writing this, a doctor sat down next to me. He is looking for a house and wants to see mine! Another divine appointment?! I will keep you posted.
Prayer… Thank-you Lord for being soooo patient with me! Putting up with my momentary internal meltdowns. I feel like such a Jeykle and Hyde! Love, your son- Jon
I think that a major problem with the human condition is… vision. How we see ourselves- ie. Self- image, God- spiritual vision, others- social vision, circumstances, pain, suffering, injustice, apathy and time – past, present and future.
Of course, I’m sure you can think of others to add to my list. It is not meant to be an exhaustive list but a starting point for what God is showing me. A springboard so-to-speak. Funny thing is, I learn more and more as time separates me from my experiences. Man, it would be cool to have the ability to glean everything we can in the moment that it is happening. We would no longer need hindsight to view things with 20-20 vision. Maybe the more we are in tune with the Spirit, our counselor, the more we will be able to see multi-dementionally. Like, living with 4-D spiritual glasses!
On my way back from Denver I was routed through Minneapolis, MN. I had about 50 minutes to catch my connecting flight to Raliegh. I arrived at my gate with time to spare. They had not begun to board yet so I took the opportunity to hit the restroom of normal size. I don’t know what the airplane designers were thinking when they made the airplane bathrooms! I am a big guy by some standards, but by no means large compared to a growing majority of americans. I am roughly 6 ft. 2 in. and weigh in at 185lbs. Needless to say, the airplane bathrooms are built for kids!
Anyways, sorry for rambling! When i left the bathroom, I saw that the gate was closed. “I wasn’t in there that long!”, I thought to myself. I peered through the door that led to the plane and saw a gal who worked for the airline. I banged on the door loud enough for her to hear me. She came and proceeded to tell me that she had retracted the stairs from the terminal and could not open them. She begins to look for another flight for me. I calmly protested while looking at my plane sitting there with the door open and stairs still down. It did not make sense to me! I was seeing one thing and thinking that I should be able to catch my flight but for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I was delayed till a later time.
But, while I was standing there I noticed that I was not upset. I did not try to push or coerce my way onto the plane. I told the nice lady that was helping me that, “this is not like me, I am not upset like I would normally be”. I went on to tell her I was on a faith-walk and was learning to trust God. What a blessing to know that God is in control no matter how things appear!
She proceeded to get me on another flight at no cost to me. Now, she did not have to do this! She went the extra mile, for which I am grateful. While I was going through this, of course the thought crossed my mind… “O.K God what are you up to here? Are you orchestrating a divine appt. with Mr. Tebow?”
No, no Tim Tebow sighting yet! But, three weeks after the missed plane, here is what God showed me….. we see very dimly right now compared to how we will see when we receive our eternal inheritance… our heavenly bodies and home. Right now, we will have to accept the fact that we are not in control and trust the One who is… step by step. It is amazing when I walk in this! It is so freeing when I take God at His word and walk in relationship, trusting His goodness, love, power and sovereignty! It really simplifies life and allows me to live out life like a child, walking in the child-like faith that the Bible speaks of. “We are His children, the sheep of His pasture” …
Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving thanks.
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his [a] ;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Unfortunately, we humans “grow up” and want our independence! “All we like sheep….”
Isaiah 53:6
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
We mistake independence for freedom! When, in reality- God’s reality, not ours, Freedom is found in trusting and obeying! I love that simple child-like song…. Trust and Obey… It is a forgotten song! Too simplistic for our sophisticated taste.
We live life like this… When we buy something that needs to be assembled. We have the option of following the instructions or going it on our own. Sadly, our lives are a lot like this. We choose to go it alone thinking that we have the answers or that we can figure it out! When, the truth is, we were designed to walk in relationship with our designer. When we chose to walk away, He graciously sent a manual of directions for living and even sent His Son to show us how it, life, is supposed to work.
In closing… this is what I have learned from the airport wait… We/I think things should happen at a certain time.. the time I think makes sense. This thinking causes us to attempt to put God on our time tables. To, promote us above God! Of course when you think about it like this it sounds obsurd. Well, that is how obsurd it is for us to elavate our thoughts and ways above His. To deceive ourselves into thinking that we know best or have a better way! In essence.. it is pride, the pride we inherited from the father of lies.
Prayer
“Thank-you Lord that you are in control and that I can walk with you, trusting and obeying. That I don’t need to figure it all out, but simply trust you and pray for wisdom, insight and the willingness to obey you no matter what. No matter how I see, think, feel or perceive.. I am to trust and obey and receive your peace that passes all understanding. Thank-you for your word, our manual for life, and our counselor-your Spirit! I know that I am not alone… that I don’t have to go it alone and rely on myself to figure life out! Thank-you! Please accept my flawed attempt to love you in return for your perfect love for me. I rest in you being God and me being your son. Thanks Dad!”
