Why aren't you giving your all?

2 Peter 3:10-11 (NIV)

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives

Here the apostle poses a statement and then asks a question. If you knew everything in the world would be destroyed at a point in time and laid bare would you change your ways to live a holy and godly life?

Australia is moving. This isn't so surprising—all the continents are on the move, and Australia drifts 70 millimeters to the northeast every year. Australia was once connected to both India and Antarctica, finally breaking away from the former 100 million years ago and the latter 45 million years ago. The continent still drifts away at a rate far too slow for humans to notice. But that journey is now starting to mess with systems that rely on pinpoint accuracy, specifically GPS.

Australian GPS was last updated in 1994, and the entire country has moved a little more than five feet since then. Much of our current technology relies on accurate GPS coordinates. For instance, driverless tractors that help with farm work will start having problems because the information about the farm won't line up with the co-ordinates coming out of the navigation system there will be problems. For Australians using driverless cars or shipping drones, accurate map information is fundamental.

Everything on earth changes, including the mighty continents. But for believers there are three crucial foundational things that will never change: God doesn't change, His Word doesn't change, and His promises do not change. These are settled forever in the heavens.

[David Finch, Elk Grove, California; source: David Grossman, "Australia's GPS Was Off Because the Whole Country Moved," PopularMechanics.Com (7-29-16); Chris Foxx, "Australia Plans New Co-Ordinates To Fix Sat-Nav Gap," BBC.com (7-29-16)]

God doesn’t change, but the world around us does. As I scrolled through a list of those I went to school with, I noticed those who were no longer with us. They had died from accidents, disease and in some cases by their own hands. God asks us, you know there will be an end to life, so why aren’t you using your life to the best of your ability to live a holy and godly life?

Giving Thanks

Psalm 100:4-5 (NIV)

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.

The psalmist reminds us to enter our area of life with praise, always praising and giving thanks to the Holy God. We should put aside other worries, other fears, other doubts, and other concerns. For the Lord is good towards us with a love that endures through all generations.

The Minnesota storyteller Kevin Kling was born with a birth defect—his left arm was disabled and much shorter than his right. Then, in his early 40s, a motorcycle accident nearly killed him and paralyzed his healthy right arm. While he was in the hospital recovering from the accident, Kling learned a life-changing lesson about "the three phases of prayer."

In the first phase of prayer, we pray to get things from God. In the second phase, we pray to get out of things. While he was in rehab for his accident, Kling learned the third phase of prayer—giving thanks to God. Kling says:

I'd been through many surgeries during my six week stay in the hospital. And each day, I would ride the elevator to the ground floor and try and take a walk. That was my job. 9/11 had happened the week before. And as our country was entering trauma, I was living one. After my walk, my wife Mary and I went into the gift shop, and she asked if I wanted an apple. She said they looked really good. Now, I hadn't tasted food in over a month … I lost a lot of weight because food had no appeal. So I said no, but she persisted. Come on. Try it. So finally, I said all right. And I took a bite. And for some reason, that was the day flavor returned, and that powerful sweetness rushed from that apple. Oh, it was incredible.

I started to cry, cry for the first time in years. The tears flowed and as the anesthesia and antibiotics flushed through my tears, it burned my eyes. And between the sweetness of that apple and the burning for my tears, it felt so good to be alive. I blurted out, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for this life." And that's when my prayers shifted, again, to giving thanks.

[Kevin Kling, "Prayer, Once a Last Resort, Now a Habit," NPR (1-10-07); On Being, "The Losses and Laughter We Grow Into," American Public Media (3-7-13);]

Rejoicing for others

Colossians 3:15 (NIV)

15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Here the Apostle tells us to let the same peace that ruled in Christ’s life to also rule in their hearts. We make up a single body and that is the body of Christ, so be thankful in all that happens even when you can’t be thankful still let your heart rejoice so that others know how thankful you are for what you have.

A young Christian named Anne Snyder spent her first three years after college trying to break into the world of journalism while trying to serve Christ through her career. Then she landed a dream job. David Brooks, a nationally known columnist with The New York Times, hired Anne to be his research assistant. She acted as his sounding board, reading early drafts of his columns and offering story ideas.

Anne is exceedingly intelligent and articulate, so it wasn't a surprise. But it was surprising that this young, professionally green evangelical Christian was working so closely with Brooks, an influential public voice, prominent journalist, thought leader, and non-Christian.

Fast-forward to mid-2015. The same David Brooks released a critically acclaimed book, The Road to Character. In the beginning of Brooks' acknowledgement page he offered this glowing honor to his new research assistant, Anne Snyder:

Anne C. Snyder was there when this book was born and walked with me through the first three years of its writing. This was first conceived as a book about cognition and decision making. Under Anne's influence, it became a book about morality and inner life. She led dozens of discussions about the material, assigned me reading from her own bank of knowledge, challenged the superficiality of my thinking in memo after memo and transformed the project … I have certainly stolen many of her ideas and admired the gracious and morally rigorous way she lives her life. If there are any important points in this book, they probably come from Anne.

Of course there's a story behind this acknowledgement: Anne's vibrant faith—and her God-given brilliance, uncompromising work ethic, and extensive reading list—had influenced Mr. Brooks in a profound, and relevant, way. Her faithful presence made a difference. In good faith, Anne made Christianity a little more relevant to one person, who happens to write bestselling books and a regular column for The New York Times.

[Adapted from David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Good Faith (Baker Books, 2016), pages 35-27]

Appreciation

1 Corinthians 1:4-5

4 I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—

The Apostle here gives thanks to God for the grace given through Christ Jesus; for that grace has enriched the person in the way they act and in the way they speak, which is to be used for the good of others.

Business researchers call it "the missing ingredient" or "the hidden accelerator." Most managers could transform their workplaces with this missing ingredient: showing appreciation. That's the focus of a recent book entitled The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. Based on a ten-year study that interviewed 200,000 people, Gostick and Elton conclude that appreciation tops the list of things employees say they want from their bosses. Some of the statistics to back up this claim include:

Of the people who report high morale at work, 94.4 percent agree that their managers show appreciation.

79 percent of employees who quit their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as the key reason for leaving.

56 percent of employees who report low morale also give their managers low marks for showing appreciation.

Of course these statistics tap into a fundamental need in all of our relationships: the need to give and receive affirmation and blessing. The authors of The Carrot Principle conclude, "The simple … act of a leader [or a spouse, parent, coach, mentor, or friend] expressing appreciation to a person in a meaningful … way is the missing accelerator that can do so much but is used so sparingly."

[Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, The Carrot Principle (Free Press, 2007), pp. 7-14.}

Everyone wants to be appreciates and we can do that through encouraging words that lack unjust criticism and instead motivate the person to good works.

Light of the world

Psalm 119:105 (NIV)

105 Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

When we walk in the dark we are subject to trip and to fall. However when we have a light with us we are able to see and walk without fault. The same goes for our life, when we follow God’s word it is like a light leading us through the darkness of sin.

In February 1954, a navy pilot set out on a night-training mission from a carrier off the coast of Japan. While he was taking off in stormy weather, his directional finder malfunctioned, and he mistakenly headed in the wrong direction. To make matters worse, his instrument panel suddenly short-circuited, burning out all the lights in the cockpit.

The pilot "looked around … and could see absolutely nothing; the blackness outside the plane had suddenly come inside." Nearing despair, he looked down and thought he saw a faint blue-green glow trailing along in the ocean's ebony depths. His training had prepared him for this moment, and he knew in an instant what he was seeing: a cloud of phosphorescent algae glowing in the sea that had been stirred up by the engines of his ship. It was the "least reliable and most desperate method" of piloting a plane back onto a ship safely, but the pilot—future Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell—knew that was precisely what he needed to do. And so he did.

While he did not articulate it this way, Jim's life was saved because of light. Not just any light, but "bioluminescent dinoflagellates," which are tiny creatures that contain luciferin, a generic term for the light-emitting compound. Bioluminescent organisms live throughout the ocean, from the surface to the seafloor, from near the coast to the open ocean.

John 8:12 tells us, When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The delight from God's word

Psalm 119:143 (NIV)

143 Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands give me delight.

Here King David means, "Lord, let the word of truth be always in my mouth; let me have the wisdom and courage which are necessary to enable me both to use my knowledge for the instruction of others, and, like the good householder, to bring out of my treasury things new and old, and to make profession of my faith whenever I am called to it.” [Matthew Henry]

Prolific children's author George Koshy spent three years writing a children's Bible, the first of its kind to be originated in any Indian language. When a local publisher rejected it, Koshy filed the manuscript in his cupboard.

Two years later, the same publisher decided to publish it. George opened the cupboard and discovered only shreds—mice had eaten his manuscript! For the next two years, he worked day and night to recreate the manuscript.

[For Christmas in 2009], Samaritan's Purse distributed 58,000 copies of this Bible in Kerala, India. Recently, George learned that two Hindu children became Christians and now attend church after reading a copy. "This is a product of much pain," Koshy says, trusting God for additional eternal results.

[Used by permission from Media Associates International (MAI), a missions organization that "equips and nurtures talented men and women with a passion for producing Christian literature for their own people."]

Thee commands or words of God are powerful and they can bring comfort and knowledge when a person is in distress. Sometimes we see so little the work that goes into ministering to others, but the results that come from that work are exponentially greater.  

God is in control

Job 37:5-6 (NIV)

5 God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. 6 He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’

God’s voice is in control of all things. He speaks into action events that happen around us. It is beyond our understanding, but it is marvelous and grand.

Poll Asks, "Is God in Control of Natural Disasters?"

A March 2011 poll surveyed Americans regarding their beliefs about God's involvement in natural disasters. The following are some of the results of this research:

•  56 percent of the Americans surveyed believe that God is in control of the earth
• 38 percent believe that God employs events in nature to dispense judgment
• 29 percent believe that God punishes entire nations for the sins of a few
• Nearly 60 percent of evangelical Christians agreed that God can use natural disasters to send messages
• 44 percent of Americans say that the increased severity of recent natural disasters is evidence that we are in the end times
• 61 percent of Christians from racial and ethnic minorities believe that natural disasters are God's way of testing our faith—and according to the article, that idea "resonates with African-American's history of surviving through slavery and racial discrimination."

The article concluded: "After one of these disasters [like the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami], people turn to their clergy and theologians and they look for answers, and there are no great answers …. But almost every group believes you have to help people who are suffering." [Nicole Neroulias, "Poll: Most in U.S., except evangelicals, see no divine sign in disasters," USA Today (3-24-11)]

God often works His wonders to bring about changes in people. When people are faced with a crisis such as the tsunami listed above, people will join together to help one another. The day before they may not have even noticed their fellow man and now they are helping one another.

I will serve The Lord

Joshua 24:15 (NIV)

15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

We have a choice what religion and what god we wish to follow. Here Joshua states that he will follow the Lord, the God of his ancestors and the only God he has known and loved.

When the prayer made in faith is not answered, and the healing for which many have sought does not come, we are not to look for someone to accuse of failure in faith. Rather we are to remember that besides faith there is hope. Hope has to do with God's promises that are still future and hidden, just as faith has to do with God's promises that are here and now. To the person who has believed for today but has not seen the answer come today, there comes the call to hope. Hope says, "Tomorrow also is God's. Enough has happened already to assure you that the rest is on the way." [—Thomas Smail, quoted in Ken Blue's Authority to Heal]

Who will you serve? The God of Hope or whatever you fancy? God lets us see faith in action. God also allows us to see hope that comes in the future with the richness and fullness of God.

Understanding God's Hope

Ephesians 1:18 (NIV)

18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,

Those who have their eyes opened, and have some understanding in the things of God, have need to be more and more enlightened, and to have their knowledge more clear, and distinct, and experimental. Christians should not think it enough to have warm affections, but they should labour to have clear understandings; they should be ambitious of being knowing Christians, and judicious Christians.

The popular novelist Andrew Klavan was raised in a non-practicing Jewish home. For about the first 45 years of his life, he lived as a "philosophical agnostic and a practical atheist." Klavan explains some of the steps along his journey that eventually led him to faith in Christ:

Jesus never appeared to me while I lay drunk in the gutter. And yet, looking back on my life, I see that Christ was beckoning to me at every turn. When I was a child, he was there in the kindness of a Christian babysitter and the magic of a Christmas Eve spent at her house. When I was a troubled young man contemplating suicide, he was in the voice of a Christian baseball player who gave a radio interview that inspired me to go on. And always, he was in the day-to-day miracle of my marriage, a lifelong romance that taught me the reality of love and slowly led me to contemplate the greater love that was its source and inspiration.

But perhaps most important for a novelist who insisted that ideas should make sense, Christ came to me in stories. Slowly, I came to understand that his life, words, sacrifice, and resurrection formed the hidden logic behind every novel, movie, or play that touched my deepest mind.

I was reading a story when that logic finally kicked in. I was in my forties, lying in bed with one of Patrick O'Brian's great seafaring adventure novels. One of the characters, whom I admired, said a prayer before going to sleep, and I thought to myself, Well, if he can pray, so can I. I laid the book aside and whispered a three-word prayer in gratitude for the contentment I'd found, and for the work and people I loved: "Thank you, God."

It was a small and even prideful prayer: a self-impressed intellectual's hesitant experiment with faith. God's response was an act of extravagant grace. I woke the next morning and everything had changed. There was a sudden clarity and brightness to familiar faces and objects; they were alive with meaning and with my own delight in them. I called this experience "the joy of my joy," and it came to me again whenever I prayed. Naturally I began to pray every day.

This would lead to a full acceptance of Christ as Lord. Later, Klavan was baptized and wrote a book about his spiritual journey titled The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.

[Andrew Klavan, "How a Man of the Coasts and Cities Found Christ," Christianity Today (8-22-16)]

God in our lives

Hebrews 4:12 (NIV)

12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

There is great help that comes from the word of God in that we can find strength, encouragement and rest. For God’s word penetrates the heart and makes us aware of our short comings.

While every analogy of the Trinity has its limitations, this picture illustrates one aspect of our Triune God—that they are all on the same team.

Say a family is trapped in a forest fire, so a helicopter team undertakes a rescue. One fireman flies the helicopter over the smoky blaze to coordinate the operation and see the big picture. A second fireman descends on a rope into the billowing smoke below to track down the family and stand with them. Once he locates the family, he wraps the rope around them, attaching them to himself, and they are lifted up together from the blaze into safety. In this rescue operation the first fireman looks like the Father, who can see the whole field unclouded from above to sovereignly orchestrate the plan.

The second fireman looks like the Son, who descends into our world ablaze to find us, the human family, and identify with us most deeply in the darkness of the grave. The Spirit is like the rope, who mediates the presence of the Father to Jesus, even in his distance, and raises Jesus—and the human family with him—from sin, death, and the grave, into the presence of the Father. Of course, like all analogies, this one falls short. The Spirit is a person, not a thing (like the rope). And the Father, Son, and Spirit are not separate individuals but the one God, sharing a divine nature and essence as one being. [Adapted from Joshua Ryan Butler, The Pursuing God (Thomas Nelson, 2016), page 122]

Gratitude

Ephesians 5:19-20 (NKJV)

9 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, 20 giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

This should be the attitude of Christians, to sing songs and hymns to God to enrich your heart and let the burdens of like slip away. Then we are to give thanks for all things that come our way in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The key to a happy and lasting marriage might be as simple as regularly expressing gratitude. So report researchers from the University of Georgia in a new study published in the journal Personal Relationships.

After interviewing 468 married individuals on relationship satisfaction, covering everything from communication habits to finances, they found that the "most consistent significant predictor" of happy marriages was whether one's spouse expressed gratitude. "Feeling appreciated and believing that your spouse values you directly influences how you feel about your marriage, how committed you are to it, and your belief that it will last," says study co-author Ted Futris.

 And that goes for good times but perhaps especially bad ones—when couples experience stress and their communication devolves into what the researchers call a demand/withdraw cycle (i.e., one partner demands or criticizes; the other tries to avoid a confrontation). Gratitude can disrupt this, acting as a buffer.

"What distinguishes the marriages that last from those that don't is not how often they argue, but how they argue and how they treat each other on a daily basis," says Futris. Adds lead author Allen Barton, the study "goes to show the power of the key to a happy and lasting marriage might be as simple as regularly expressing gratitude." So saying thank you is a "practical way couples can help strengthen their marriage."  [This Might be a Key to Happy Marriage, USA Today (10-24-15); submitted by Van Morris, Mt. Washington]

King David said in Psalms 71:8, “Let my mouth be filled with Your praise And with Your glory all the day.” Let’s make that a goal for our lives.

The joy of Salvation

Psalm 51:12 (NIV)

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

There are two ill effects of sin. One there is a sadness that comes with sin. For the person who knows better and yet commits the act of sin becomes sad. Two sin weakens the person. Not only do they deal with the sadness of sin, but they must also deal with how sin weakens their spirit.

"I was years and years upon the brink of hell--I mean in my own feeling. I was unhappy, I was desponding, I was despairing. I dreamed of hell. My life was full of sorrow and wretchedness, believing that I was lost."

Charles Spurgeon used these strong words to describe his adolescent years. Despite his Christian upbringing (he was christened as an infant, and raised in the Congregational church), and his own efforts (he read the Bible and prayed daily), Spurgeon woke one January Sunday in 1850 with a deep sense of his need for deliverance.

Because of a snowstorm, the 15-year-old's path to church was diverted down a side street. For shelter, he ducked into the Primitive Methodist Chapel on Artillery Street. An unknown substitute lay preacher stepped into the pulpit and read his text--(Isaiah 45:22) "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." [Mary Ann Jeffreys. "Charles Haddon Spurgeon," Christian History, no. 29.]

No matter what our desperation there is always the joy of salvation that comes to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Waiting on The Lord

Psalm 27:14 (NIV)

14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

So often we are in a hurry. We want to see things done quickly. We want an answer now. Yet The Bible tells us to wait on The Lord in strength and faith.

An article in The Boston Globe claims that our "demand for instant results is seeping into every corner of our lives." The need for instant gratification is not new, but our expectation of "instant" has become faster. The article states:

Retailers are jumping into same-day delivery services. Smartphone apps eliminate the wait for a cab, a date, or a table at a hot restaurant. Movies and TV shows begin streaming in seconds. But experts caution that instant gratification comes at a price: It's making us less patient …

We've come to expect things so quickly that researchers found people can't wait more than a few seconds for a video to load. One researcher examined the viewing habits of 6.7 million internet users. How long were subjects willing to be patient? Two seconds. After that they started abandoning the site. After five seconds, the abandonment rate is 25 percent. When you get to 10 seconds, half are gone." The results offer a glimpse into the future. As Internet speeds increase, people will be even less willing to wait for that cute puppy video. The researcher, who spent years developing the study, worries someday people will be too impatient to conduct studies on patience. [Christopher Muther, "Instant gratification is making us perpetually impatient," The Boston Globe (2-2-13)]

The Apostle James wrote to us saying, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

When we hurry we might miss some of the opportunities God has in store for us, but when we are patient we see all that He has planned.

Spiritual Surrender

Psalm 62:1 (NIV)

1 Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.

This is a Psalm of King David. He opens with saying that his soul finds rest in God and then he explains by saying he knows that his salvation comes from God.

At the age of 35 Christian psychologist and researcher Dr. Jamie Aten was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his pelvis. Aten said:

For the first six months, whenever I asked for a prognosis, all my oncologist would say was: 'I can't tell you that it's going to be okay, Jamie. It's too early to tell. If there's anyone you want to see or anything you want to do, now is the time.'" Cancer wasn't the first disaster I faced. My family and I had moved to South Mississippi six days before Hurricane Katrina. But this disaster was different. There was no opportunity to evacuate as I did before Katrina made landfall. This time the disaster was striking within: I was a walking disaster.

Aten learned that the key to both traumatic situations involved what he calls "spiritual surrender." Aten writes:

Spiritual surrender helps us understand what we have control over and what we don't. In a research study I led after Katrina, we found that people who showed higher levels of spiritual surrender tended to do better. This finding didn't make sense to me at the time. It seemed like a passive faith response. Fast forward to my cancer disaster. I vividly remember taking the trash to the curb one winter morning while praying that God would heal me. The freezing air felt like tiny razor blades cutting across my hands and feet because of the nerve sensitivity caused by chemotherapy.

Wondering if God even heard my prayers for healing, I kept praying as I walked back inside my home. Then all of a sudden I dropped to my knees and prayed the most challenging prayer of my life. Instead of continuing to pray for God's healing, I asked that God would take care of my wife and children if I didn't make it.

This was the hardest prayer I had ever prayed. For the first time in my life, I truly experienced spiritual surrender. I finally understood. True spiritual surrender is far from passive—it is a willful act of obedience.

[Jamie Aten, "Spiritual Advice for Surviving Cancer and Other Disasters," The Washington Post (8-9-16)]

The uncertainty of life

Proverbs 27:1 (NIV)

27 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.

Boast not thyself, no, not of to-morrow, much less of many days or years to come. This does not forbid preparing for to-morrow, but presuming upon to-morrow. We must not promise ourselves the continuance of our lives and comforts till to-morrow, but speak of it with submission to the will of God and as those who with good reason are kept at uncertainty about it. [Matthew Henry]

The hymn-writer wrote, "Change and decay in all around I see." Change and decay are enemies that most people fear. ... When we are young, change is a treat; but as we grow older, change becomes a threat. But when Jesus Christ is in control of your life, you need never fear change or decay. ... When you are part of eternity, the decay of the material only hastens the perfecting of the spiritual, if you walk by faith in Christ.  [Warren W. Wiersbe, His Name Is Wonderful. Christianity Today, Vol. 30, no. 2.]

Paul McCartney once said, “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, Tomorrow I’ll miss you. 

The Love of God

1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Here the apostle gives praise to The Father for the Salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is a new birth, a new life, with hope of an eternal life with God.

Kris Lackey thought he had hurricane-proofed his manuscripts. An English professor at the University of New Orleans, he had saved his fiction and papers (including the novel he had half-finished) via hard drive, flash drive, diskette, and hard copy. But as the murky waters continued to rise and he was forced to evacuate his home, he left his papers and computer equipment behind. Even so, he left them in high places—tables and bookshelves well out of harm's way. He was, by no means, expecting the 11 feet of water that completely besieged his house during Hurricane Katrina.

Returning more than a month later, Lackey found pages floating in mud, completely indecipherable, as well as what was left of his flash and hard drives. Nothing was retrievable. Nothing.

While some things are can never be retrieved, a life with Christ is every lasting. For there is nothing, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, that will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Seek His Kingdom

Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

If we were but more careful to please God, and to work out our own salvation, we should be less solicitous to please ourselves, and work out an estate in the world. Thoughtfulness for our souls in the most effectual cure of thoughtfulness for the world. [Matthew Henry Commentary]

Claude Alexander, bishop of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, urges Christians from all walks of life to step up into bold leadership. Here's his take on bold leadership:

There are questions that beg to be answered. There are dilemmas to be overcome. There are gaps to be filled, and the challenge is for you to fill them. That is the essence of the high call of spiritual leadership. There is a purpose for your being here. You are meant to answer something, solve something, provide something, lead something, discover something, compose something, write something, say something, translate something, interpret something, sing something, create something, teach something, preach something, bear something, overcome something, and in doing so, you improve the lives of others under the power of God, for the glory of God.

The grace of Our Lord

2 Corinthians 13:14 (NIV)

14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Thus the apostle concludes his epistle, and thus it is usual and proper to dismiss worshipping assemblies. This plainly proves the doctrine of the gospel, and is an acknowledgment that Father, Son, and Spirit, are three distinct persons, yet but one God; and herein the same, that they are the fountain of all blessings to men. It likewise intimates our duty, which is to have an eye by faith to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-to live in a continual regard to the three persons in the Trinity, into whose name we were baptized, and in whose name we are blessed. [Matthew Henry]

Today is my 60^th birthday and for the majority of those years I have known the mercy, grace and love of the Lord. I was a young child when I told my mother I feel like Jesus wants me to tell the preacher I believe in God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. It was a feeling I have a hard time explaining, but I know I was compelled to go.

Through the years I have had my failures in life. There is no such thing as a perfect Christian. The apostle tells us in 1 Corinthians 9:24, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” This is a comparison to the Christian life. A runner gives his best to reach the finish line. Sometimes the runner may come in last. Sometimes the runner may trip and fall. At other times the runner may tire and just want to give up. Some may even resort to walking, but eventually they reach the finish line, whether first or last.

For my birthday I hope each of you know the love of God and Christ. I hope you will run the race of life with enthusiasm and will keep up the hope of crossing the finish line into heaven. You may say, I have too many failures to give my life to God. Let me assure you, I still have failures in my life.

For those who believe they are sinners, for those who have murdered, and those who steal, those who others consider abnormal because of their sexual orientation or beliefs; God welcomes you with open arms. You see God welcomes the broken, down trodden, hopeless, tired and rejected. And God will not reject you nor forsake you.

May God bless you and be with you through the years, because He certainly has been with me.

Abundant Showers

Joel 2:23 (NIV)

23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

The Lord has given and will give you the former rain and the latter rain, and, if he give them in mercy, he will give them moderately, so that the rain shall not turn into a judgment, and he will give them in due season, the latter rain in the first month, when it was wanted and expected. [Matthew Henry]

In his second letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul said,

“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word…”

Peter, writing in his first letter, said,

“If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

In other words,

“If any man speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God, speaking to the fullest or the best of the ability that God has given him, that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

God has bestowed His grace upon us with abundant showers. For those who believe, His mercy does not turn to judgement.

Unwholesome talk

Ephesians 4:29 (NIV)

29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Filthy and unclean words and discourse are poisonous and infectious, as putrid rotten meat: they proceed from and prove a great deal of corruption in the heart of the speaker, and tend to corrupt the minds and manners of others who hear them; and therefore Christians should beware of all such discourse. It may be taken in general for all that which provokes the lusts and passions of others. We must not only put off corrupt communications, but put on that which is good to the use of edifying. The great use of speech is to edify those with whom we converse. Christians should endeavour to promote a useful conversation: that it may minister grace unto the hearers; that it may be good for, and acceptable to, the hearers, in the way of information, counsel, pertinent reproof, or the like. [Matthew Henry]

Novelist William Giraldi, a contributing editor to The New Republic, recently wrote an essay on the modern phenomenon of online hate mail, most often found in the comments section below an article. Comments often devolve into hate-filled insults, but Giraldi draws some conclusions that Christians could agree with. First, Giraldi writes that hate mail proves that, "People are desperate to be heard, to make some sound, any sound, in the world, and hate mail allows them the illusion of doing so. Legions among us suffer from the [boredom] and [unhappiness] of modernity, from the discontents of an increasingly [isolated] society."

According to Giraldi hate mail also means that at least someone is listening to your viewpoints—even if they hate you for it. Giraldi writes, "Part of a writer's [we could insert Christian here] job should be to dishearten the happily deceived, to quash the misconceptions of the pharisaical … to unsettle and upset. If someone isn't riled by what you write, you aren't writing truthfully enough. Hate mail is what happens when you do."

Devotion to God

Philippians 2:1-2 (NIV)

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.

The same love that we are required to express to others, others are bound to express to us. Christian love ought to be mutual love. Love, and you shall be loved.

Claude Alexander, bishop of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, urges Christians from all walks of life to step up into bold leadership. Here's his take on bold leadership:

There are questions that beg to be answered. There are dilemmas to be overcome. There are gaps to be filled, and the challenge is for you to fill them. That is the essence of the high call of spiritual leadership. There is a purpose for your being here. You are meant to answer something, solve something, provide something, lead something, discover something, compose something, write something, say something, translate something, interpret something, sing something, create something, teach something, preach something, bear something, overcome something, and in doing so, you improve the lives of others under the power of God, for the glory of God.

Holy Spirit lead us

Psalm 143:10 (NIV)

10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

Oh, the ease at which we walk on level ground. The psalmist asks for easy leading from the Holy Spirit to learn the will of God.

You might not know the name Angelo Dundee, but you've undoubtedly heard of Muhammad Ali, probably the most famous professional boxer of all time. For more than two decades, Angelo Dundee was in Muhammad Ali's corner, literally. He was Ali's cornerman! He's the one who made Ali float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. He also trained fifteen other world boxing champions. Angelo Dundee described his job as a cornerman this way: "When you're working with a fighter, you're a surgeon, an engineer, and a psychologist."

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have something even better than a surgeon-engineer-psychologist in our corner—the Holy Spirit.  [Mark Batterson, If (Baker Books, 2015), page 249]

Holy Spirit break us

 Come and overtake us

 You're the one we're living for

 Holy Spirit lead us

 To the heart of Jesus

 There is nothing we want more

 Teach us how to live beyond ourselves

 Let everything we say and do

 Bring glory to Your name and bless Your heart

 God Show us how to love like You

 Strip away my pride and selfishness

 Take me back to my first love

 Falling on my knees, now I confess

 You will always be enough

Coming home to God

John 14:23 (NIV)

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

Where a sincere love to Christ is in the heart, there will be obedience: "If a man love me indeed, that love will be such a commanding constraining principle in him, that, no question, he will keep my words.' Where there is true love to Christ there is a value for his favour, a veneration for his authority, and an entire surrender of the whole man to his direction and government. Where love is, duty follows of course, is easy and natural, and flows from a principle of gratitude. [Matthew Henry]

NPR's radio show "This American Life" ran an interesting segment about a marketing executive from Colombia named Jose Miguel Sokoloff. The government of Columbia approached Jose with an interesting assignment: run a marketing campaign that will convince leftist guerrilla rebels to demobilize and reenter society. At first Jose's firm ran a series of radio ad campaigns that featured testimonials from former rebels. But actors actually read the testimonials so that plan didn't work.

Then in 2010 Mr. Sokoloff tried a different approach—an ad campaign called "Operation Christmas." At nine strategic places in the jungle where the rebels traversed, they strung hundreds of Christmas lights on 75-foot tall trees. When the rebels walked by a motion sensor set off the lights and a recorded message that said, "If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home." That campaign helped demobilize 331 rebels.

The next year they ran a similar campaign titled "Operation Rivers of Light." The firm filled over 7,000 translucent plastic balls with small gifts and heartwarming notes inviting the rebels to come home. As the rebels travelled by river, this time they saw the balls, lit up and floating on the river, coming towards them. They couldn't resist; they opened the balls and received the gifts and read the notes. Beauty was the key to this campaign. Sokoloff said, "When you see all these lights floating down the river, slowly floating down towards you, you can't escape the thought of, this is a beautiful thing … [you're] drawn to it."

Then in 2012 the ad agency ran "Operation Bethlehem." They shone huge skylights up into the night air and ran the following message: "This Christmas follow the light that will guide you to your family and your freedom." [Ira Glass, "The Poetry of Propaganda," This American Life (12-18-15)]

Come home, Come home,  Cause I’ve been waiting for you,  For so long,  For so long,  Right now there's a war between the vanities,  But all I see is you and me,  The fight for you is all I’ve ever known,  So come home.

Connections to God's love

Psalm 119:64 (NIV)

64 The earth is filled with your love, Lord; teach me your decrees.

David pleads that God is good to all the creatures according to their necessities and capacities; as the heaven is full of God's glory, so the earth is full of his mercy, full of the instances of his pity and bounty. [Matthew Henry]

Samson, whom no earthly power could subdue during the twenty years that he was energized by the Spirit of God under his Nazarite vow, yet as soon as his locks were shorn was weak as another man. David, who, while he walked with God was the man after God's own heart, yet at length, when out of communion, could be guilty of the most appalling sins. We have no strength of our own to stand against temptation. The longest life, the most devoted service, is no security against a fall. I remember, when a young man, seeing, at a lecture on magnetism, a piece of soft iron brought on the platform and shown to be unable to hold up a needle. A coil of copper wire was then put round it, and connected with an unseen battery. Now it held, first nails, next chisels and other tools, till all the weights of the institution were brought, and it sustained them every one by the magnetic power. At a signal the wire was cut, and they all fell to the ground. It could no longer hold up the smallest thing. Its magnetic power was not in itself, but in its connection with the unseen battery.

Building the family of God

Ephesians 2:19 (NIV)

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,

The church is compared to a city, and every converted sinner is free of it. It is also compared to a house, and every converted sinner is one of the domestics, one of the family, a servant and a child in God's house. [Matthew Henry]

A church in Buffalo, New York has found a unique way to bless its local community—open a Subway franchise in its building. In a riff off the popular TV show, Undercover Boss, in which business leaders from large corporations spend several days working alongside lower-level employees, Don Fertman, Subway's Chief Development Officer, goes undercover at several locations across the United States. Most of the episode includes your typical Undercover Boss fare—bumbling executive, dedicated workers, tear-jerker employee recognitions—but Fertman also visited a restaurant in Buffalo, New York located in the same building as True Bethel Baptist Church. The church owns and operates the franchise.

The reason? To provide employment and job training to the surrounding neighborhood. On the episode Senior Pastor Reverend Darius Pridgen explains the origins and aim of the idea:

The reason we actually put it in the church was because there weren't a lot of opportunities in this neighborhood when I got here. We had a high murder rate, and a lot of people not working. So, a lot of people always talk about, "Just give people jobs." Well, that's not the key, if they haven't been trained. So we started collecting an offering. We called it a "franchise offering"—literally called it a "franchise offering." But we've got to do more than build a business. We've got to train people. We try to push people into the next level of life.

The episode concludes with Fertman waiving the franchise fee for the church to open another similarly suited store in a nearby neighborhood. In addition, he encourages a room of Subway executives to consider it as a model for the future.

[Adapted from Joseph Sunde, "Church Opens Subway Franchise to Bring Jobs to Community," Acton blog (2-19-14)]

One in Christ

Galatians 3:28 (NIV)

28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

This verse reminds us that in Christ there is no distinction between race, free or slave, male or female, for we are all one in Christ.

MIT used to have a famous office building simply called Building 20. This structure, located at the intersection of Main and Vassar Streets in East Cambridge, and eventually demolished in 1998, was thrown together as a temporary shelter during World War II, meant to house the overflow from the school's bustling Radiation Laboratory. As noted by a 2012 New Yorker article, the building was initially seen as a failure: "Ventilation was poor and hallways were dim. The walls were thin, the roof leaked, and the building was broiling in the summer and freezing in the winter."

When the war ended, however, the influx of scientists to Cambridge continued. MIT needed space, so instead of immediately demolishing Building 20, they continued using it as overflow space. The result was that a mismatch of different departments—from nuclear science to linguistics to electronics—shared the low-slung building alongside more ordinary tenants such as a machine shop and a piano repair facility. Because the building was cheaply constructed, these groups felt free to rearrange space as needed. Walls and floors could be shifted and equipment bolted to the beams. For instance, a scientist working on the first atomic clock removed two floors from his Building 20 lab so he could install the three-story cylinder needed for his experiments. In MIT lore, it's generally believed that this haphazard combination of different disciplines, thrown together in a large reconfigurable building, led to chance encounters and a spirit of inventiveness that generated breakthroughs at a fast pace. When the building was finally demolished to make way for a new $300 million office space many at MIT mourned the loss of Building 20. As a matter of fact, the new building includes boards of unfinished plywood and exposed concrete with construction markings left intact.

Many people came together to work on a common goal at MIT. In the Church that are many people who come together to work on a common goal. Each person is different and each may come from different backgrounds, but it in love of Christ they work together for they are one in Christ.

God in the seasons of our life

Psalm 116:1-2 (NIV)

1 I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. 2 Because he turned his ear to me,     I will call on him as long as I live.

David, in straits, had humbly and earnestly begged mercy of God, and God had heard him, that is, had graciously accepted his prayer, taken cognizance of his case, and granted him an answer of peace. [Matthew Henry]

Keith Mannes, of Highland Church, preached the following: My wife's aunt Gladys has always had a little apple orchard at her home. But this year when we paid her a visit, I couldn't help but notice the huge harvest of apples. The branches hung heavy, and some were cracking with the weight of abundance. Never, in many years, had anyone seen such a harvest.

When I asked her why, she told me that last year there was a late frost in the spring, and all the buds froze. When that happens, Gladys said, an apple tree does a miraculous thing: It stores up its energy in thousands of small bumps, or nodules, called scions (pronounced "see-ons"). All that energy pulsates through that network of scions until the spring of the following year, and then, BAM! You have an exploding riot of buds, as an apple tree unleashes all that stored up energy.

Gladys' description made me think about our spiritual lives. Sometimes the harsh frosts of this life—cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, trauma, grief, depression—cause our hearts to freeze. But at the core of the Christian faith we also live with an incredible promise: in and through Christ, there will be an abundant harvest in our lives. God's power is pulsating under the gnarly bark of this world and even our bodies. In Christ, we are being formed into a small nodule of living hope. During certain seasons of our life we feel our hearts waiting, longing, and even aching for those frozen places to burst into life. Our living hope is that one day, all of this stored up glory will be unleashed in a joyful riot of splendor.

God's grace in giving

Romans 8:32 (NIV)

32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Our God is rich and generous to us. Here the apostle reminds us that a father who gives up his own son, will graciously all things that are needed.

Sgt. Dennis Weichel, (pronounced WY-KLE) 29, died in Afghanistan last week as he lifted an Afghan girl who was in the path of a large military vehicle barreling down a road. Weichel, a Rhode Island National Guardsman, was riding along in a convoy in eastern Afghanistan when some children were spotted on the road ahead.

The children were picking up shell casings lying on the road. The casings are recycled for money in Afghanistan. Weichel and other soldiers got out of their vehicles to get them out of the way of the heavy trucks in the convoy. The children were moved out of the way, but an Afghan girl darted back onto the road to pick up some more casings right in the path of a speeding 16 ton armored truck.

Weichel spotted the girl and quickly moved toward her to get her out of the way. He succeeded, but not before he was run over by the heavily armored truck. The girl was safe, but Weichel died of his injuries. Dennis was 29 years old and had arrived in Afghanistan only a few weeks before.

Staff Sgt. Ronald Corbett, who deployed with Weichel to Iraq in 2005, said, "He would have done it for anybody," adding, "That was the way he was. He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He was that type of guy."

This is the same type of sacrificial love God showed us, by allowing His Son to die for our sins. God loves us deeply and graciously gives to us what we need.

Living for Christ

Philippians 1:21 (NKJV)

21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

The apostle tells us there should be a readiness to glorify Christ, whether in life or in death. “Those who have most reason to desire to depart should be willing to continue in the world as long as God has any work for them to do.” [Matthew Henry]

In 1967, a student named Libby attended with her boyfriend, Tom. During the final commitment evening, both submitted their lives to the Lord. For 30 years, Tom and Libby Little served in Afghanistan, providing vision care to the people of Kabul throughout seemingly endless wars and conflict.

In August 2010, shortly after conducting a two-week medical camp in a remote valley of northwestern Afghanistan, Tom and his medical team were ambushed and killed. Upon receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her husband, Libby said, "Although Tom was killed in 2010, he had already surrendered his life to God's good purposes way back in 1967." For four decades, Tom had submitted himself to his divine master.  [Adapted from Alec Hill, "The Most Troubling Parable," Christianity Today (July/August 2014)]

When we give our life to Christ we are with Him, whether in this life or in eternal life. May we all serve Christ faithfully.

Praying for the sick

James 5:14 (NIV)

14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.

The Apostle James tells us if there is anyone who is sick that we should call the leaders of the church together, praying for them and anointing them with holy oil in the name of the Lord.

Longtime Atlanta radio personality Jenn Hobby received devastating news on Saturday.

"August 13, 2016," Hobby said on Facebook. "It is the day that Reese and our family started to beat cancer."

The day that forever changed our world. It is the day that Reese and our family started to beat cancer.

For the last two weeks, we’ve been in and out of the emergency room and doctors’ offices chasing the origin of numerous symptoms. We knew something wasn’t right with our gregarious 10-month old; we just didn’t have any answers.

Saturday morning, Reese had an MRI of her pelvic region. The initial scan would reveal a large mass. One hour after our lil angel went back for a routine MRI, the doctor would sit knee to knee with us and tell us Reese has cancer.

We were immediately admitted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. As we walked on to this highly specialized cancer unit at arguably one of the best pediatric hospitals in the country, we felt comforted by the incredible staff and facility yet terrified by the reality of our circumstances. In an instant, we became part of a new family that shared one common theme – we are the chosen ones to beat cancer.

We are so grateful to have such an incredible network of family and friends. The love and support Reese and our family feel is beyond words. Thank you to everyone who has reached out and lifted our baby up in prayer. Please keep going.

She is strong and a fighter…We are going to beat this. Reese is going to be healthy again soon. We are surrounding her with love and light and laughter.

With determination and love, Jenn and Grant

Luke 18:15-17 People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Let us all pray for Reese, Jenn, her husband Grant, her other daughter Lauren and the rest of the family. May the Lord touch Reese with His healing hands and give the doctors the wisdom to know what to do.

We belong to The Lord

Romans 14:8 (NIV)

8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

Christ is the gain we aim at, living and dying. We live to glorify him in all the actions and affairs of life; we die, whether a natural or a violent death, to glorify him, and to go to be glorified with him. Christ is the centre, in which all the lines of life and death do meet. This is true Christianity, which makes Christ all in all. So that, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's, devoted to him, depending on him, designed and designing for him. [Matthew Henry Commentary]

Nicole Cliffe became a Christian on July 7, 2015, after what she called "a very pleasant adult life of firm atheism." "The idea of a benign deity who created and loved us," she writes, "was obviously nonsense, and all that awaited us beyond the grave was joyful oblivion … I had no untapped, unanswered yearnings." But here's how she describes what happened to her:

First, I was worried about my child. One time I said "Be with me" to an empty room. It was embarrassing. I didn't know why I said it, or to whom. I brushed it off, I moved on, the situation resolved itself, I didn't think about it again.

Second, I came across John Ortberg's CT obituary for philosopher Dallas Willard. John's daughters are dear friends, and they have always struck me as sweetly deluded in their evangelical faith, so I read the article. Somebody once asked Dallas if he believed in total depravity."I believe in sufficient depravity," he responded immediately. "I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, 'I merited this.'" A few minutes into reading the piece, I burst into tears. Later that day, I burst into tears again. And the next day. While brushing my teeth, while falling asleep, while in the shower, while feeding my kids, I would burst into tears.

She read more Christian books and every time she cried all over again. She emailed a Christian friend and asked if she could talk about Jesus. She writes:

But about an hour before our call, I knew: I believed in God. Worse, I was a Christian … I was crying constantly while thinking about Jesus because I had begun to believe that Jesus really was who he said he was … So when my friend called, I told her, awkwardly, that I wanted to have a relationship with God, and we prayed … Since then, I have been dunked by a pastor in the Pacific Ocean while shivering in a too-small wetsuit. I have sung "Be Thou My Vision" and celebrated Communion on a beach, while weirded-out Californians tiptoed around me. I go to church. I pray …

[Evan after accepting Christ] I continue to cry a lot. [I read a news article] that literally sank me to my knees at how broken this world is, and yet how stubbornly resilient and joyful we can be in the face of that brokenness. My Christian conversion has granted me no simplicity. It has complicated all of my relationships, changed how I feel about money, messed up my public persona … Obviously, it's been very beautiful. [Adapted from Nicole Cliffe, "How God Messed Up My Happy Atheist Life," Christianity Today (5-20-16)]

Delight in God's riches

Psalm 119:14 (NIV)

14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.

The psalmist reminds us that we should rejoice in God’s statues as one rejoices in the riches of the world. For God’s ways a greater than anything we can imagine.

Our treasure and our truth come from Scripture. Scripture is God's guidance for us on how to avoid Satan's harmful traps and to live God's blessed life. Rather than seeing God's Word as limiting, we need to see it as a gift of love and to value it more highly than riches.

I’m not sure I know anyone who has won the Publisher’s Clearing House, but when the show the commercials of someone showing up with a large check, the person opening the door is not only surprised by delighted.

We too should take delight in God’s word and enjoy the surprises waiting for us.

Taking in wisdom

Proverbs 9:9 (NKJV)

9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

There are those who are willing to listen to those with wisdom and in doing so they become wiser. The person who listens carefully also gains in knowledge.

When I was 18, my father, a doctor, learned what it was like to be on the receiving end of medical care. He was diagnosed with cancer. His type was very survivable if caught early—which could only be known through surgery.

I sat next to him in the waiting room before the operation. It was odd seeing him in a hospital not striding with confidence into a patient's room or giving orders at a nurses' station like a battleship commander—something I had witnessed many times as a boy accompanying him on Saturday morning rounds. Instead he sat in silence with his shoulders rolled and hands shaking.

"You know doctors make the worst patients," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because we know too much. We know the thousands of things that can go wrong that most people never imagine."

Thankfully his cancer was caught early and he survived, but something important happened when the physician became the patient, when the expert became the examined. He gained something that can't be taught in medical school or acquired from years of practicing medicine. Cancer gave him empathy. I saw his compassion for his patients grow following his own health crisis. Doctors may make the worst patients, but patients make the best doctors.

[Skye Jethani, "Dreaded Exams," Leadership Journal (March 2014)]

Oh, when we take the time to learn the opportunities to learn from life and apply it in such a way that we become a comforter to others.

Waiting for God

Psalm 149:4 (NIV)

4 For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory.

God is a king who rules by love and he takes pleasure in His people and want them to prosper and be in communion with him. He places crowns upon the heads to those who humble themselves before Him.

Charlie and Agnes are some of the meekest people I've ever known. Charlie is a bright, energetic, hard-working man who could have been successful at just about anything he set out to do. What he set out to do was mission work. He spent his entire career working with some of the lowliest people on earth—alcoholics on skid row. For many years he was director of Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, and then in his retirement years he went to work for the McCauley Water Street Mission in New York. At a time in life when most people his age were playing golf or taking cruises, Charlie would commute every day to minister to homeless men on the streets of New York.

You don't get rich doing mission work your whole life, but every once in a while, Charlie and his wife, Agnes, would get to do something special. One year they invited me and my wife, Karen, to join them for a night on the town. Someone had given them tickets to hear Handel's Messiah at Carnegie Hall—velvet-covered seats in a private booth. It was a great night, and we all enjoyed it. As they drove us home that night, Karen and I were sitting in the back seat, and I was admiring Charlie and Agnes. They were all dressed up for their big night out. She was sitting close to him, like they were high school sweethearts. They struck me in that moment as two of the happiest people on earth. Just then I noticed a little plaque they had stuck to the dashboard of their old Chevy. It explained everything: "God always gives what's best to those who leave the choice to him."

Charlie and Agnes had long ago given up striving, fretting, and demanding things from God and from life. Instead they had surrendered to God their talents, their careers, their safety, their material needs, and even their retirement. Instead of chasing the abundant life, they waited for God bring it to them.

[Bryan Wilkerson, in his sermon "In God We Trust (Though We'd Rather Pay Cash),"]                               

Wisdom in God's Word

Psalm 119:130 (NIV)

130 The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.

God’s word provides wisdom for all people so they are able to understand the truth.

During Superbowl XXXVII, FedEx ran a commercial that spoofed the movie Castaway, in which Tom Hanks played a FedEx worker whose company plane went down, stranding him on a desert island for years. Looking like the bedraggled Hanks in the movie, the FedEx employee in the commercial goes up to the door of a suburban home, package in hand.

When the lady comes to the door, he explains that he survived five years on a deserted island, and during that whole time he kept this package in order to deliver it to her. She gives a simple, "Thank you."

But he is curious about what is in the package that he has been protecting for years. He says, "If I may ask, what was in that package after all?"

She opens it and shows him the contents, saying, "Oh, nothing really. Just a satellite telephone, a global positioning device, a compass, a water purifier, and some seeds."

Like the contents in this package, the resources for growth and strength are available for every Christian who will take advantage of them.

We just have to take the time to read God’s word so that we can apply it in our lives and not let it sit there idle without ever looking to see what wisdom we can find.

Doing the things we hear

James 1:22 (NIV)

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

If we rested in bare hearing, and never acting, it would never bring us to heaven.

At the 1993 annual meeting of The American Heart Association, 300,000 doctors, nurses, and researchers met in Atlanta to discuss, among other things, the importance a low fat diet plays in keeping our hearts healthy. Yet during meal times, they consumed fat-filled fast food—such as bacon cheeseburgers and fries—at about the same rate as people from other conventions. When one cardiologist was asked whether or not his partaking in high fat meals set a bad example, he replied, "Not me, because I took my name tag off."

{Boston Globe (11-10-93); Stephen Nordbye, Charlton, Massachusetts}

We can take off our name plates, but God and others still know who we are. They know if we are listening and doing the things we hear.

Marathon runner, disable, afflicted and determined

Hebrews 12:1 (NKJV)

1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

We are all in a race of life. Here on this earth we are born and we die. God has given us a purpose in life and we are to carry out that purpose until the finish line of life. In accomplishing God’s purpose we are to lay aside the sins that ensnare us and the temptations that weight heavy on our hearts.

In 1994 I ran the NYC marathon, all 26.2 miles of it. I wasn’t a fast runner, but my goal was to finish. It took 5 hours and 10 minutes, but I crossed the finish line. There waiting was a crowd cheering and supporter helping with food, water and other needs.

Zoe Koplowitz is a marathon runner who is afflicted with multiple sclerosis and diabetes. She is speaker and author of The Winning Spirit – Life lessons learned in last place. Her 33-hour-9-minute run in 2000 set a world record for the longest marathon time in the history of women's running. "The race belongs not only to the swift and strong but to those who keep on running", says Koplowitz.

At the conclusion of her 25th New York City Marathon on November 4, 2013 Zoe addressed the crowd which had gathered to see and cheer her finish. "It makes you understand that life is not happen stance or random all the time. That there is a plan, and it's a good plan. When we do things like the marathon, we get an opportunity to see how the pieces fit, and life no longer becomes this random series of crazy events. There was a lovely young woman with multiple sclerosis who waited hours in the street for me to come by. On one side of her sign she had my name in big bold letters. On the other side of her sign, she had something that reduced me to tears. It said 'Because you run every year, the rest of us continue to walk.'

Koplowitz says she has done 25 of these, and it never grows old. There is life after disability. You can either go through life like this [arms closed], or you can go through life like that [arms open]. And for me, New York City is that. It's arms out reaching for possibility and hope every single year. I love this city. I love its strength, I love its diversity, I love its personality, and thank God it loves me back because I wouldn't know what to do if it was a one-sided love."