Month: April 2015

Mighty Mouse Faith

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This picture is one of my very good friends and her 12 year old son taken last year during football season.  Besides being one of myunnamed[1] (3) favorite pictures ever, it is also a tribute to great faith.  You see, Troy, her son, is on the small side of life.  He is almost 13 and yet he is a head shorter than his almost 12 year old sister.  He is also very small boned, and has a very hard time sometimes being accepted by and respected by his peers.

However, he has a passion for football.  Yes, that sport where generally the bigger and bulkier you are, the better.  Where guys his age are generally 6-10 inches taller than him, and at least 50 pounds, if not more.  Where bruises and bumps and battering are to be expected.  It was very hard for her to say yes to his playing..but he had such a desire, and the coach was willing to let him, so she couldn’t say no.

And you know what?  Halfway through the season, he was still on the team…and had earned the most envious nickname of “Mighty Mouse”!  The coach was amazed at his speed..and his ability to run in and out of the big bruisers without them having a chance of catching him!  He’s also lower to the ground, and it doesn’t hurt as much when he’s brought down!  He earned the respect of his team members and coaches by being fearless and by being able to work quickly to make a play happen.

That’s the kind of faith I want!  I want a spiritual life that reflects no fear.  I want to be able to face the big bruisers in my life – the scary things, the obstacles, the new things – with a ready heart.  I want to be able to take those bumps and falls in my walk with Jesus, and get right back up, ready to play again.  And I want to make big plays for our team –  the eternal one – the heavenly kingdom, to the praise and honor of our great God!  I want God to look at me and say, “I can count on her…she’s not afraid to step out and do _________”…whatever He needs me to do.

As it says in my life verse, “Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15).  So next time you are facing something huge in your life, just remember this picture- and that our GOD is bigger than anything!

No Answer But Jesus

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imageLess than a year ago, on a hot July morning, I stood outside a friend’s house, watching police and paramedics come and go.  My friend, Joe, was 43 and had just taken his own life about 45 minutes previous.  As I watched all the people gathered there, questions seemed to explode in my mind.  Why this day?  Why at all?  What if he could have known how many people would gather outside and mourn him just minutes later -would he still have done it?

And why, after losing three of my best guy friends to cancer the year before – ages 56, 50, and 39 – had Joe made this decision?  He was a member of my church too, and he watched all 3 of those men fight for their lives. What did we miss in Joe’s life??

Although my faith is strong, my love for the Lord full, and my future secure in Heaven, I couldn’t find all the answers.  I did come away convinced that sometimes, there just ARE no answers, not this side of Heaven.  Some things we are just not meant to know or understand, no matter how hard they are.  As one of my early pastors said, too, just knowing why is not enough to take away all the pain – we still bear the loss.

Yesterday, two lifelong friends of ours – Rick and Jean, their son and daughter-in-law, and their other 5 grandchildren suffered an incredible loss.  Joey, the 13 year old pictured here, took his own life on Easter Sunday.  Chad & Christy, his parents, made the decision to turn off his life support yesterday, and have now been plunged into an incredible valley that only Jesus can take them through.  Joey’s brothers and sisters are left as well to struggle to understand, and to continue on with their own lives.

And yet.  My “and yet” God has promised never to leave us or forsake us (Joshua 1:5).  He understands the pain of death (John 11:32-36).  He has told us in His Word that the day we are born, our last day is also written down in His book (Psalm 139:16).  And the best promise is that we will be reunited again (I Thessalonians 4:13-18).

So, as I pray for another family facing the unthinkable death of their child, I will still ask the Lord a lot of questions.  I will wrestle with the hard truth that Joey’s death did not “surprise” God – that he knew it would happen before Joey was ever born.  And I finally I will give in, again, to the Truth that Jesus is the only answer and I will not know it until I see Him face to face.

Over and Over and Over Again

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I was reading a most interesting article today on the internet by a writer who was disputing the recent “no chemicals” approach to eating that many people today have taken to extremes.  The writer was a highly educated scientist of some unpronounceable degree, and had many valid points about the chemical “hysteria” that exists right now.  And they were knocking, in particular, a blogger whose fame has taken off with their “toxic eating” campaign. He also made the point that this “fad” would fade away soon, because it wasn’t real. However the most striking thing he said was in order to get people to follow this lifestyle of “detoxification”, you have to convince them that “they have been toxed“.

Isn’t that so true in the spiritual realm too?  Our pastor regularly says that you cannot share the good news with someone and get any kind of result, until they understand the bad news!  The bad news is that we were all born in sin, and have a sinful nature, and we cannot fix that on our own.  Until a person understands that and believes it, nothing will happen.  The good news that Jesus died for them to redeem them from the penalty of sin is not significant unless they realize that they need it.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where today’s bad news is quickly yesterday’s false scare.  Every other “scientific study” will completely discredit the last one. Sugar is good today, bad tomorrow.  This causes cancer today, and yet tomorrow it is only a maybe.  Same with people, except in reverse.  Today’s hero – politician, athlete, television personality – is tomorrow’s headline maker for all the wrong reasons.  Nothing seems to be the same from one day to the next.

Then what are we to do?  Live it.  Over and over and over again.  The world will not be impressed by another “here today, gone tomorrow” in ANYONE’S life.  Part of the problem that we encounter in witnessing to others is that sometimes it looks like just another fad in our lives..and that it’s not real.  We will never convince anyone that they are “toxed” – sinners in need of a Savior – by saying we have One and then living like we don’t!

So, let’s detoxify our lives, and our witness by being the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.  And let’s show others that there IS a problem with their lives if they don’t know Jesus, and then let’s live it to the point that they believe it’s real!

Living Easter Day by Day

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10403285_943106499066799_9100973137571227845_n[1]Celebrating Easter yesterday was amazing.  It was joyful, exciting, and had so many beautiful songs of worship and praise.  In my case, it also included watching our young children do their Easter program.  The church was filled with beautiful clothes in pinks, light greens, and all pastel colors in between. It was a sparkling blue day outside, with hardly a cloud after a week of gloomy cloudy weather.

However – our community has lost 3 young people in the last few weeks – a 15 year old and a 19 year old to auto accidents, and a 14 year old to a freak accident on a baseball field where he was hit in the head.  It is always hard to lose that many lives in such a short time, but even more when they were so young. It has sparked a lot of conversation about life and death at work, in our churches, and in our community.  During Spring Break last week, one of our elementary school principals died of a massive heart attack at the age of only 51.  There was a whole school today that was in mourning on a very tough first day back.

Thinking about all this today I could relate to the apostles.  Just after experiencing the unbelievable excitement and wonder of the resurrection of Jesus, they were “left” by Him after 40 days when He ascended to Heaven.  And I am sure their question was the same as mine today – now what??  After all, Resurrection Day for them was filled with awe, relief, and affirmation that Jesus was who He said He was.  And then…they were alone again.  The Holy Spirit was coming, but the physical reassuring presence of Jesus was gone.  AND He left them with the commandmant to take the gospel to the whole world!

We face the same situation today.  The world that watched us celebrate Easter yesterday is still watching.  They want to know how we handle the day after.  They want to know if it really makes a difference in daily life. In my community there are people grieving and trying to go on after major loss, and they want to know how our faith can help them.  They need to know that Jesus is not just there for the good times, but in the tragedies as well.  And WE have been commanded to show them.  My prayer today is that God will be glorified as we share Him in the midst of life after Easter.

Hope Available Here!

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DSCN0526DSCN0527I was inspired today to do a (little) spring cleaning, and our screened in back porch this time of year is always a sorry mess.  Pollen has literally invaded every inch of it, including the white (now yellow) cat!

We also have patio furniture out there underneath all that, and the table has an opaque glass top.  I can’t wait every year to tackle it when the visible pollen is finally through, because it is really sad when you can’t even see through the glass!  Before I cleaned it, however, I had a thought, and turned on the porch light to take a picture (picture on left).  You can barely see the light reflecting in it.  Then after washing it thoroughly, I took the same picture – and look at the results (picture on right)!  Amazing, isn’t it?

God used this to remind me, with Easter coming tomorrow, about what a difference He has made in my life.  We are all made in the image of God, and are designed to bring Him glory and honor.  And we are also created to reflect HIS image in our lives, and not our own!  You can see, however, that when sin (the dirt and pollen) collect and are not attended to, His light cannot hardly shine through us.  All the world can see (as in me looking at this table before) is dirt and ugly and annoyance that something designed to be beautiful, designed to reflect, is not doing it!

Put another way, if I had company and invited them to eat on the table on the right, I would be embarrassed and they would be totally turned off.  And who could blame them?  But I sometimes don’t have any trouble living in this world, or inviting others to my church, or sharing the gospel with the unsaved….and I SHOULD be embarrassed by the sinI have been harboring or the way I have been living…and they are always turned off!

So, as we celebrate Easter tomorrow, and the gift of salvation that Jesus made possible for us on the cross, lets also analyze which table top we represent – and ask God to make all things new by repenting and allow Him to wash us clean again!

I Have a BIG God!

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I grew up in the “golden age” of Biblical movies, back when Hollywood would bring the Bible to the big screen in a mostly accurate way with at least some reverence for the subject material.

Having said that, I tried to watch “Exodus: Gods and Kings” with my hubby last night.  I really did try.  But halfway through we turned it off…not because we were offended necessarily, but because of the inaccuracies and the sad treatment of my “and yet!” God.

I am NOT writing to bash this movie, because I know that those who aren’t Christians cannot correctly interpret what they do not know or believe.  I am, however, writing because of the way that God was portrayed.  When Moses first encounters God, and then in another scene, God is portrayed as a little boy.  No booming voice, no mystery, no awe, just a simple ordinary human, and a child at that.  Which shows just how far our world’s opinion of God has fallen.  No longer is He shown as an all powerful, big, bold God.  He has been made to look like what the world can accept – a small, ineffective person who can waver in his opinions and doesn’t have a lot of power.

Of course God did not let me stop there.  Hollywood is not the only place where God is made small.  I know many honest, sincere people in church – many of whom have trusted the Lord for their salvation – who worship a small God.  They know He is able to remove their sin and get them into heaven….but it pretty much stops there.  They don’t see Him as a personal, intimate God, who cares about every aspect of their lives.  Or who has a plan for their lives, who wants good things for them, and who wants to have fellowship with them on a daily basis.  They come and worship Him on Sundays, but they don’t seek Him out during the rest of their daily lives.

There are also many people in churches today who have a small God.  They are the ones who look like Christians, know all the right words, and can quote the Bible back and front.  But in their hearts, they don’t believe.  They can live in sin – of all kinds – and think that God really doesn’t care, or can’t really do anything about it.  They don’t recognize His holiness, or His power to judge – or even that He has a right to.

None of these images of our holy, risen Savior God is accurate!  As we celebrate Easter this Sunday, maybe we just all need to look inside, and examine ourselves, and see if WE are worshipping our great BIG God!  To Him be ALL the glory!

Celebrating Fire Ants

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theme_01-nodate[1]This time of year in deep south Georgia, there is a festival of some sort every weekend.  Peaches, peacocks, peanuts – you name it, we’ve got a festival!  Because I am from the big city (Atlanta) the first spring we were here was a constant surprise of the things people will celebrate.  As you can see from the photo there is a great event, complete with a “fire ant queen” beauty pageant.

Fire ants are remarkable.  I didn’t truly appreciate them until we lived in this part of the country.  They are aggravating, mulitply more than rabbits, and can make a grown man weep when he encounters a mound of them unexpectedly.  They are sneaky because they begin their colonies underground, and once the hill appears, they can be MILES deep. We know from science that they are incredibly powerful and smart.  They can move things many, many times their weight, and their colonies rival the best architecture in the world.  And they are practically indestructible! We spent major $$ one spring spraying our yard with the “strongest” pesticide, and they were laughing at us two days later. I found this out too when we had minor flooding one year – I watched as entire colonies, totally undisturbed, FLOATED down small streams, without one death among them! There is one “cure” for them, but it requires a licensed exterminator to come apply the treatment.  Even at that, the ants are not destroyed – they simply go to live in your neighbor’s untreated lawn!

Does that sound vaguely familiar to you?  I believe it SO accurately represents sin in the Christian’s life.  It begins small – ant size.  We don’t always recognize it, because it can hide so cleverly among all the other things in our lives.  And like the ant hill, when we do come to terms with it, it can be miles deep in our hearts.  It WILL aggravate, it will multiply, and it WILL cause even the strongest among us to weep. It can appear indestructbile.

AND YET!  This week we celebrate the ONE who not only addresses sin in our lives, He lived and died to completely conquer it!  Unlike the exterminator who can only “chase off” the ants, Jesus Christ’s death on the cross PERMANENTLY killed sin!  In the born again believer’s life, His blood has the power to not only remove previous “colonies” of sin, it can prevent future ones.  THAT is a fact worth celebrating this Easter, and every other day!  To God be the glory!