Talking to God

Dear God:

We saw deer and their fawns one year on our vacation. They stood in a vacant field at their supper time. The scene is buried deep in my mind and heart. The doe watched her baby and allowed it to play a safe distance away. Again, You brought this picture to my mind telling me of your watchful care of your children. I will remember the tender scene each time I prepare to worship You.

Your creation teaches us so much. Why do we avoid examples of your great love? AMEN

A Book Review

Facing Our Giants

by Max Lucado

Max Lucado takes us through the Old Testament story of David, shepherd, giant killer, king in waiting, King, the hunted and the haunted.



Max always has a way of bringing the situation into the present with his comparison of modern life to that of Biblical time. By doing this, he brings the story to our everyday life.



He titles each chapter with the name of a giant in our lives. The strange part is these giants in our lives also resided in David’s. I wonder how Max figured that out?



This is a book you might want to read a second time. Max included a study section at the back of the book. I believe this book would make for a great group study.



I also believe a reader would benefit from studying it by themselves.

Belonging

For every living being belongs to me, the father

as well as the sonboth alike belong to me.

 (Ezekiel 18:4 NIV)

This scripture comforted me when a middle aged son of a friend went to be with our Lord. A mutual friend directed me to it.

Everyone belongs to God. He made them and can allow anything to enter the lives of His children.

God uses trials to help us grow into the person He intends us to be.

In the 1980’s a friend lost her husband, leaving her with two small children. Her Christmas letter that year spoke of going through a period of painful growth.

In the 1990’s another friend lost her second husband to Cancer. Several years earlier, her first husband died from a heart condition, leaving her with four young children. She found the Lord after losing her first husband. She took a Christian counseling class after her second husband went to be with the Lord.

Both these women displayed strength while going through a time of uncertainty and then a time of loss.

They possessed the courage to stay the course and rear their children with the Lord’s guidance.

What we don’t realize is everyone in our lives is there because God either placed them there or He allowed them to cross our path. This includes who we marry, who our neighbors are, and who we have for friends. Also, God calls us to where He wants us to worship..

God also gives us certain spiritual gifts to use as He directs, in order to build His Kingdom. He equips us with what we need to fulfill his calling upon our lives. When we accept God’s calling for us, people recognize those gifts in us.

A Psalm

By Quiet Spirit



O Lord, You have been my mainstay

Since I can remember.

You guide me through every disappointment and

Each struggle.

You allow me to bounce back from defeat and

Destruction of my heart.

You clear my messes and clean up my sin.

You provide my every need and do so with love.

You, O Lord, minister to me when I ail.

You , O Father, listen to me when I pray and when I wail.

Please continue to hear my prayers and minister to me

when I intercede for others.

I beg of you to speak to me through your Word.

Anchor my mind in You and please allow me to work for your kingdom.

Waiting On The Lord

“We wait in hope for the Lord;

He is our help and our shield.

In him our hearts rejoice,

For we trust in his holy name.

May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we pin our hope in you.

(Psalm 33:2022 NIV)



We wait. Do we like to wait? Not always, especially when we are young. We
live in a “fast food” world. Some times we wait in fear. Other times we wait in dread.

But the psalmist says “We wait in hope for the Lord;” we could wait in hope because we know him and believe he will make everything right. We could waiti n hope because we will see him in all his glory.

The writer knows God is our help and shield. He rescues us from this sinful world and take us away from those who injure us.

We will ‘be happy and rejoice’ because we will be seeing a friend, someone we know, someone we trust. The psalmist say, ‘we trust in his holy name.’ We can’t trust in anything or anyone else without getting disappointed or disillusioned, friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, delivery men, repair men.

When was the last time we rejoiced over something good that happened to us, our family, or our friends? We will rejoice when we see the Lord, because of who he is.

"Why, Lord ?"

How often do we ask this question when we are new in the Christian walk? Do we ever not ask the question? Why or why not? Can we ask that question without God being disappointed?

Whenever a babe in Christ finds himself or herself facing situations they don’t understand. He or she will ask God ‘Why’. For instance, a new follower will pray for a friend who is ill. The friend continues to get worse. The young Christian doesn’t understand why her prayers aren’t answered.

Having been a practicing Christian for almost 40 years, I can say, “Yes, we do have times when we will ask God “Why?”. We have times where we don’t understand the reason we or our families have to go through tough times. A relative finds out she has Breast Cancer a second time. A friend’s youngest son has a positive attitude about beating his Cancer, lasting almost three times longer than most with that type of the disease. But, God takes him away anyway. These have been some of my ‘whys.’

Yet, there are times we don’t ask the question. Our faith carries us through. When we do ask the question, could it be God wants to take us to a new level of faith? The good news is we can ask our Lord why events do or don’t happen in our lives. The quandary is He may or may not answer.

He chose not to answer my many questions that began with “WHY” when I asked them about my relative. But He did allow us to spend a lot of time together and to become closer. When I inquired of the Father about my friend’s son, He did give me an answer. My friend’s son would have suffered quite a bit because the Cancer was everywhere in his body. God told me the Cancer didn’t take him.

We can ask this question without God becoming disappointed in us. He loves us and allows us to approach his throne with all our concerns and worries. God is a just person and has our ultimate welfare in mind as we muddle through times of uncertainty.

Spiritual Winter

I am reading FACING YOUR GIANTS, by Max Lucado. In this book, he talks about David and how he faced Goliath. He uses a term I hadn’t heard before. He said the looseknit tribes of Israel, in One Thousand BC, were going through a bad era. He then states the people went through three centuries of spiritual winter.

The phrase ‘spiritual winter’ set me to thinking.

Do we, as modern day Christians, have spiritual winters in our Christian life? Are we, as a nation, experiencing a form of this phenomenon? If we are, can we break through this ordeal?
It seems the answer to my first question also works for the second one.

1. We stop reading our Bibles. We are a people who can give many excuses. “I don’t have time.” Our pastor reminded us in one of his sermons that we all have 168 hours a week. “I’m too tired at the end of the day.” “I can’t understand what I read.” I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “It’s not what I don’t understand when I read the Bible, it’s what I do.”

2. .We start watching TV shows we know we shouldn’t. We justify our viewing habits by saying or thinking “ But the newspaper said it was good.” “But my friend said it didn’t have any bad language in it.” or “I like this actor/actress, it won’t hurt to watch it.” As a writer, I have sometimes claimed to myself, “It’s research.”

3. We begin to exhibit inconsistencies in our behavior and we justify it. We call our closest friend and tell something that we were told in confidence. Again we try to make our actions seem right. “I can trust her/him. She won’t tell anyone.”

4. . We don’t pray as we once did. There again we make excuses. “I’m too busy.” I saw a sign years ago, “If you are too busy to pray, you are TOO busy.” “I don’t believe God hears my prayers.” If we think God doesn’t hear your prayers, then we need to look at our lives and see what we’ve done to cause it.

5. We look to other gods, forgetting the one true God. We have a plethora of things that can take the place of the God of Abraham, if we let them. Yes, it’s nice to have a new car. . . once in a while. Yes, it’s cool to have a nice home. . . we can afford it. It is nice to have a beautiful yard. . . if we don’t forget how we got it and it doesn’t own us.

Now, how do we get back to where we need to be–come out of that spiritual winter? We need to follow the directions of God in II Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”