One of Those Days

Oct 17 – Prayer Challenge

“Never give up.  Eagerly follow the Holy Spirit and serve the Lord.” – Romans 12:11

Can we just own that this is really hard some days?

Today, I want to give up.  Today, I want to throw in the towel on the parts of my life that require responsibility.  Today, “eager” isn’t quite the word I would use to describe me.

But even in my weakness, in my frustration with myself and some of the moving parts of my life, I know that I serve a God who loves and surrounds me.  When I don’t feel the desire to change, when I don’t have the energy to lead, when my passion feels stale and my drive to change the world is empty, God is still at work, in and around and through me.

My youth director (now my pastor) once told me “Do it ’til you feel it.”  Yes.  On days like today, yes.  And praise God that He is a part of our faithful but tired actions as much as He is when we are bursting with energy and passion.

What is it that you want in your spiritual life?  What about in the lives of the people around you?  Pray for those things.  Pray daily or even hourly.  Live in a mindset of prayer so that you’re praying for it every minute of the day.  Never give up.  You may not notice the results of your prayers, but as much as prayer has the ability to draw God into transforming the world around us it also has the ability to change us as well.

I pray encouragement for you today, my friend.  ”In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – Jesus in John 16:33
 

Asking for Help and God’s Beauty

With this entry, we are officially caught up!  I know it took longer than planned.  I hope you will continue to journey with me.  I want to encourage you to please leave comments with your thoughts, suggestions, questions, and experiences!

Oct 6-7 Stressed? Me?

Ah.  Stress tests.  They sure can open your eyes can’t they?  I want to touch on one important aspect of stress management that maybe could have come up in the course of this week but didn’t – the value of other people’s help.  If you’re anything like me, you may find yourself wanting very much to do everything on your own.  Even when it might be easy to ask other people to give you a hand, you don’t want to.  That is some fierce independence – and it can be a dangerous thing. Sometimes, independence works out just fine, but often, we get to a point of stress where we think that we cannot keep going.  Our independence makes us want to do things by ourselves but God created us to need other people!  The only part of creation that God said was “not good” was when Adam was alone without Eve as his “helpmate.”  And Ecclesiates 4:12 says, “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”  God has given us the ability to find strength in other people and strength in Him.  If nothing else, when you’re going through a rough time, ask someone to pray for you.  Give God the opportunity to help you!  Let God be the one to hold you up when you have too much going on and share your struggles with another person so they can encourage you on your roughest days.

Oct 8 – Quiet Glory

What is the most beautiful thing in the world to you?  What is God’s most stunning creation in nature close to where you live?Wherever that thing or place is (and it may just be beautiful to you and not to anyone else), go there sometime this week.  Rest there and enjoy the beauty that God has placed in your life.  If you are able to, praise God that He has given you five senses to enjoy His beauty.  If it’s appropriate, take a picture of the place you find.  Even if you have lost or been born without one or more of your senses, praise God for the beauty that you see in people because they are His creation too.  Even if it’s just 5 minutes, take time to be still inside God’s creative beauty this week.

Strength in Weakness and Learning to Center

Sept 15-16  Singer/Songwriter Jason Gray: The Loser Finds a Voice 

I just love stories like this.  How awesome is it when God uses someone’s exact weakness to become their strength?!?  I mean, seriously!  Guy has a major stuttering problem – God gives him a career as a singer.  That doesn’t just happen.  That is God and that is cool.

One of the reasons I like these stories so much is that, secretly (or not so secretly), I want it to be my story.  Could God really take one of the things I am most insecure about and use it in my life in a big way?  It seems so impossible to me.  But could He really do that?  Yeah.  I guess He could. 

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul spends some time talking about his weaknesses.  Here is my favorite section, verses 9-10:

[The Lord] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

I can just see God asking, “Where is My child the most insecure?  What is he most afraid of?  What does she want to do that she thinks she never could?  Where have I kept him the weakest?”  If God uses those parts of us, we will know without a doubt that it is God at work in us and not our skill or hard work causing us to succeed.  God receives all the glory.

Whenever you worry about the things you’re not so good at, think about that first verse.  God’s power is made perfect in your weakness – He is able to show everyone just how great He is in you! 

Sept 17 – Molded by Movies

Last night at youth group, we talked about what kinds of things people have at the center of their lives.  Some of our youth said things like family and friends, school, or themselves.  Others wrote down chorus, softball, or band.  Other people might have money, success, church, or music at the center of their lives.  It’s probably not too hard for you to imagine one of these things (or something like them) being at the center of your life, but what would happen if you put God in the center?

Whatever your “center” is is probably where you spend the majority of your time and what you spend the most time thinking about.  Whether you want to face it or not, these things will influence the ways you act and think.  Many different things in our lives mold us, but perhaps nothing more than the people we spend time with.  Proverbs 13:20 says “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”  Basically, you are who you hang out with! 

Today, think about the things and the people you have at the center of your life.  Consider ways that you might start to move God more to the center of your life, and ask Him to mold you into the person He wants you to become.

To the Heights and A Loving Response to Your Tormenters

Sept 13 – Shed the Dread

You know, I’m going to be honest with you.  (That’s something I will always do my best to be here.)  I tried really hard to write this blog yesterday.  I sat and wrote and thought and erased and wrote and erased some more.  I was frustrated.  Why can’t I come up with anything to say that feels like the direction God might be headed?  So I wrote the one entry, put the rest aside, and left.

This morning was rough again.  I was really down on myself, struggling to find the confidence that my efforts matter.  And then it came time to write this blog.  This time, the verse from the devotion today spoke to me so much more deeply: 

The Sovereign Lord is my strength…

I haven’t had much strength today.  We don’t always have a lot left of ourselves to give.  So He will sustain me.  He will provide for me.  And He has.

…he will make my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.

Do you ever feel like you’re in a valley that you can’t get out of?  You feel stuck.  You’re surrounded by mountains without an escape.  You’re tired…

But what if you could leap up the sides of the mountains?  What if you could bound up and across the steep crags and easily reach the top, easily see the bigger picture of where you had been?  Wouldn’t that be perfect?  I would feel like I was flying!

That’s what God frees us to do.  On our own, we cannot reach the heights of His joy, the deep-hearted places He wants us to live in.  Our feet are gnarled, our baggage is heavy, and our legs are weak.  But He says He will make our feet like the feet of a deer (Habakkuk 3:19).  He says to take His burden because it is light (Matthew 11:30).  He says that His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Trust God to take you to the heights.  Know that He has given you both the ability and the courage to do so.

Sept 14 – Stinky

Have you ever been like the girl in this story?  Have you been the person who people pushed, taunted, made fun of, harassed, whispered about, yelled at, or mocked?  How did you respond?  Or if you haven’t experienced it, how do you think you would respond?

Just before Jesus was killed on the cross, He was mocked too.  Matthew 26:67-68 says that people “spit in his face and struck him with their fists.  Others slapped him and said, ‘Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?’”  Later, a different group of people ”stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him [symbolizing royalty], and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.  They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ they said.  They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.” (Matthew 27:28-30)

What would you have done in that situation?  If it had been me, I don’t know.  I might have been sobbing and begging them to stop.  I might have been angry and tried to lash out.  But Jesus, as He is dying on the cross prays, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)  Wow.  After being spit on, beaten, mocked, having thorns driven into His forehead, and hung on a cross with spikes driven through His wrists and feet, He asks for their forgiveness…?  If that’s what Jesus means by “love your enemies” (Luke 6:27), then I’m not sure I am up to the task.  It certainly gives us something to work toward.

If you have been the victim of bullying, teasing, or mocking at school or anywhere else, I am so sorry.  Know that you are not alone and that here, we know that your pain is real and justified.  Since we cannot control other people but only the way we respond, I pray that God will give you the strength to love as Jesus did here, to respond with kindness, even when it is not returned to you.