A choice to pray and to praise

Gratitude is a choice. A choice versus a feeling. At the moment, I "feel" like fretting or indulging in frustration or complaining about all I have to do or maybe just lying down in denial and taking a nap! Having teenagers can be a tremendous joy... and a tremendous challenge. There are times I wonder why on earth God made me a mother of five children, since I feel like such a clueless rookie. Okay, so I had to vent just a little bit. But right now, though I don't feel much like thanking the Lord, I choose to praise Him for His goodness and greatness and grace. I choose, as an act of the will, rather than give in to fleeting feelings, to pray and praise.

As I sat down to write this (with a slight stomach ache due to stress!), my phone rang. Now, first let me preface this with the fact that I have the song "Courageous" as my ring tone (my children find this both annoying and embarrassing--so, of course, I will keep it!). Listen to these words from the chorus: "The only way we'll ever stand is on our knees with lifted hands. Lord make us courageous." O how I love that! That is truly the only way we will ever stand against discouragement and fear and fretting and failure--on our knees in prayer and with lifted hands in praise. And, did I mention, it's an act of the will? Sometimes we will feel like praising our Lord to the skies, with joyful and overflowing hearts.

And sometimes we don't. But when we feel like falling down in frustration and fear, and yet in spite of those feelings we choose to pray and praise, I have to think we bring even more joy to the heart of God and more glory to His wonderful name. For no matter our temporary circumstances and challenges, HE IS WORTHY! He is holy. He is omnipotent. He is full of mercy and grace and truth. He is redemption. He is able. O, He is so abundantly able.

Wow, I can't tell you how much better I feel! Because I'm not able... but He is. I'm not powerful or wise or holy... but He is and His Holy Spirit lives within me. And right at this moment, my perfect, loving Savior is interceding for me at the throne of grace. Such riches, such blessings--how can I not be thankful?

By the way, that phone call a minute ago? It was from my husband, reminding me of some words he had just read on dealing with stress. "Meditating on God's Word can dispel our worry, doubt, fear and stress." And he quoted Phil. 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." How I love those verses! How often have I read them and quoted them, and yet how often I need to recall them and ask God to enable me to faithfully live them out daily, hourly. The bottom line: pray about everything, worry about nothing, praise over absolutely all things.

Thank You Lord Jesus for not just redeeming our lives from the depths but for transforming our hearts out of the pits. Thank You for taking this ungrateful heart and filling it with praise and thankfulness. Lord, help us to stand courageously and joyfully by staying on our knees in prayer and lifting our hands in praise. So to God, the Giver of grace and gratitude and courage, be all the glory.

Oct. 29th

On this day, Oct. 29, in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was executed for a sentence that had been imposed on him 15 years earlier for an alleged conspiracy against King James I. Exactly two years after Raleigh was beheaded, the Mayflower landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts, bringing the pilgrims to this new world. And about a century before Raleigh's execution, Martin Luther rocked the world when he nailed his 95 Theses on the cathedral doors at Wittenberg, on Oct. 31, 1517.

Even more earth shattering: we also have a lot of family birthdays this time of year! My mother, husband, brother, sister-in-law, not to mention two sons!

Absolutely no point to all this, save the fact that a lot happened this time of the year! I'm thankful for Raleigh who gave his name to this wonderful town where we live. I'm thankful for the pilgrims and their legacy of perseverance and faithfulness. I'm thankful for Martin Luther and his courage and the fact that we are saved by faith alone. And I'm thankful for the precious loved ones God has placed in our lives. To God be the glory.

A Short List

A few Amish proverbs: "Contentment is not getting what we want but being satisfied with what we have."

"Happiness doesn't come from doing what we like to do, but

liking what we have to do."

"The key to contentment is to realize life is a gift--not a right."

Just a little food for thought as we seek to be pilgrim people who are overflowing with thanksgiving.

Today is a chilly (actually, cold!), misty, gray day. Normally I might complain, but I am choosing to be thankful. And the funny thing is, when you make up your mind to be thankful and ask God to help you, the Lord seems to delight in giving you a grateful perspective that colors and brightens your world. It was truly beautiful on the greenway today as I walked along with our dog, Moses. The fallen leaves made a crunchy autumn carpet under our feet, and the darkness of the day somehow made me think of cozy thanksgivings by the fire. The brisk cool air revived both Moses and me (and we both needed it, due to our advanced ages). And we saw our first deer of the fall bounding off into the brush. What amazing animals God has created!

Here's a short list of a few more things for which I'm thankful today:

My sweet mother-in-law getting off the ventilator and out of ICU

Hot tea

Soothing classical music

Sweet old Moses snoring at my feet

Reading glasses

Good books

Dear friends and the gift of fellowship that lightens our loads and multiplies our joys

God's Word that never fails

A warm home

Chocolate (that just always has to be included on any list)

Grace

The gift of another day to be thankful and share of God's overflowing goodness

Have you started your list yet? Will you pause and thank Him right this minute? Thank You Lord! And to God be the glory.

A broken, grateful heart

"The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Ps. 118:22-23)

The other day a good friend shared about an incredibly tragic encounter she had with extended family. Suffice it to say, I have never personally heard of such unremitting darkness and hostility towards God and the things of the Lord. It was if the Lord peeled back the tiniest layer of light to reveal a glimpse of how truly lost and desperate and evil our dark and dying world is apart from Christ. Such hopelessness, such depravity, such lovelessness, such emptiness--it was both heart-breaking and infuriating.

And for such a world, for such hateful and selfish and belligerent people, the Lord Jesus obediently, willingly, joyfully came and bled and died.

And such a one was I... no, apart from Christ, such a one am I. Lost, lonely, mean, self-centered, resentful, prideful, envious--you name it, that is the deep, dark, desperate pit from which the Lord Jesus rescued and redeemed each one of us.

After hearing my friend's horrific story, I wept and went to the Lord asking Him to forgive me for my unbroken, ungrateful heart. Such a dead, dark world and do I really care? Does my heart break for the ones for whom my Savior's heart was pierced and His body broken? Lord, I prayed, break my heart over the things, over the people, that break Your heart. For, if I really care, if my heart is broken over this lost world, then how can I help but share the incredible Good News of our Savior?

But secondly, I asked Him to forgive me for so often having an ungrateful heart when it comes to the enormity of the gift of salvation. Look what He has saved us from: unimaginable darkness and depravity and sin and eternal damnation. That is what I deserved. That is what we all deserved. "But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved." (Eph.2:4-5) We could never ever earn it or deserve it--only by His astounding, abundant, truly amazing grace can we be saved. Lord, give us grateful hearts that overflow every morning with the joyful knowledge that You have redeemed us and have given us another day to experience Your presence and goodness on this earth until that day You call us to our eternal heavenly home.

So today, will you ask God to give you a broken, grateful heart? Will you ask Him to give you a heart that breaks and then seeks out the lost to share the Truth in love? And will you ask Him to give you a heart that overflows with gratitude so that your thankfulness spills over to every aspect (whether good or bad) of your life and to all you meet? Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord Jesus! To the Savior, who was broken but resurrected and now reigns at the right hand of God, be all the glory forever.

The God of Omnipotence... and the small

As I have shared ad nauseam, I'm sure, I love Thanksgiving! I love the time with family; I love the weather (not too cold but not too hot); I love the food (maybe I should say, I LOVE the food); I love the pace (not yet the insanity of Christmas); I love the opportunity to give thanks to the Lord for His overwhelming blessings; I love the indians; and I love, love, love the pilgrims. And every year, I always search for the perfect thanksgiving devotion to read daily the month before Thanksgiving with my family. I never find it, because, of course, there is no such thing as perfection on this earth--both in devotions and in this terribly, awfully imperfect heart of mine. Early this morning, however, as I was reading my One Year Bible on the elliptical machine, it was if the Lord put it on my heart--"Emily, why don't you just write a little something everyday in the days leading up to Thanksgiving?" While I know my ideas and words are generally pretty lame and inadequate, I also know that the Lord's promptings are generally--okay, ALWAYS--to be obeyed, no matter our feelings. So, here goes! My ramblings tend to be pretty irregular, but by the grace of God I will try to share something here everyday as a way to remind my family (and ungrateful me) of the goodness and greatness of God and the absolute necessity to GIVE THANKS! (And I happened to look at the calendar, and, wouldn't you know it, it is exactly one month until Thanksgiving! God, You are sovereign--and You have quite the sense of timing... and humor!)

So, for today, I just want to thank God for something I read in the One Year Bible today. It's from the Old Testament book of Zechariah. A small band of the Israelites have returned to the decimated city of Jerusalem and are trying to rebuild the temple destroyed so horrifically by the Babylonians a number of years earlier. They are encountering all kinds of opposition--both from within and without, and I can't help but think they were sorely tempted to give up and pack it in. But the Lord speaks to His people and tells them: "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' says the Lord Almighty. What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of 'God bless it! God bless it!'" (Zech.4:6-7)

How I love that verse! Forget the circumstances. Forget all your weaknesses and lacks. Forget all about the size of the obstacle looming before you. Forget all about you and what you can and can't do. It's all about God and His power and might and sufficiency. We might be just one failure after another waiting to happen. But if His Holy Spirit lives within us, then there is just no telling what He can do in and to and through us. And He has promised that He will bring to completion that which He has started--in our families, in our lives, in our friends. He can level that mighty mountain. He can raise that crumbling temple.

And one more verse I just love: "Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel." (Zech.4:10) I'll tell you who despises the day of small things--I do, you do. All those little dumb nit picky things that life throws at us everyday that worry and wear us down. All those things on our to do list that we can't ever seem to get done. All those times we have to bite our tongues and not respond to a family member or friend in anger or frustration. All those aches and pains we suffer silently. All those problems with the plumbing or the yard or the car. All those meetings and deadlines and meals and chores. All those little disappointments or fears that nibble at our faith. O yes, we despise the day of small things.

But the Almighty Lord, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe does not despise the smallest of things. He notices. He cares. He moves. He acts. He controls. He restores. He redeems.

So today, will you thank Him for His omnipotence? For His power that knows no limits and has the power to tear down and to raise up? And will you thank Him that He knows and cares about even the smallest of your struggles and doubts and concerns and tasks?

"Let us come before Him with thanksgiving." Ps.95:2 To Him be all the glory--from the greatest to the littlest.

The Fair

We love the state fair. Yes, we are one of those families who NEVER miss the fair--the cool crisp weather, the energy, the families out having fun together, the exhibits, the rides (though we seem to be doing less and less of these), and, of course, the food. My apologies to Martha Stewart and to Dr. Oz, but there is just nothing like the fair food! The tempura vegetables, the grilled corn dripping with butter, the ribbon fries, the fried dough, the NC State ice cream... O gracious, I am getting so hungry just contemplating the culinary magic of the fair! It's just another reason why I love the fall. Our oldest daughter came home last weekend for a night just so we could go to the fair together, and believe me, we ate our weight in food as we meandered along through the exhibits and the crowds and the games. Yes, it is noisy and dirty and overcrowded and expensive... but so wonderful!

For some reason, whenever we wander through the fair, the Lord always gives me one of those joy bursts. You know--those moments of startling clarity when you recognize the wonder and joy of love and family and life at that very moment. Like a luminous, multicolored soap bubble, it is brief but beautiful and induces thankfulness at the goodness of God. It's as if we stop for a moment and recognize how precious this moment is, this tiny little blip of time, never to be repeated, never to return, but simply to be enjoyed and savored as fully as we can. I'm not sure why the fair almost always seems to encourage these joy bursts for me: maybe it's the collected memories of years of grilled corn and giant slides and melting ice cream and giant pumpkins and cows, all with our children in tow.

And I realize that, as with all of life, this is not forever. No longer do we have all 5 children with us at the fair. And that makes me so sad. We finally realized that we just have to go when most of us can go--if we wait for everyone, we'll never get there. (Maybe that's a lesson for life in itself--do the best you can, forget perfection, rest in God, and enjoy the moments He gives you.) So this year, there were just 4 of us--but rather than focus on who couldn't go or what we lacked, we just went and had a big old time. We ate and ate and ate and walked and watched and wandered and talked and laughed and enjoyed the beautiful day.

So, nothing profound or probably not even remotely interesting here! (My apologies if I've bored you) But just the simple, good life that we so often take for granted. I've always loved G.K. Chesterton and years ago heard a wonderful quote from a letter he wrote his fiancé: "I do not think there is anyone who takes quite such fierce pleasure in the things themselves as I do. The startling wetness of water excites and intoxicates me: the fieriness of fire, the steeliness of steel, the unutterable muddiness of mud." So true! Mud is just so, well, muddy! Fried dough is so, hmm, fried and chewy and melt in your mouth sweet and tastes, o so good--especially while walking along with your husband and your daughter and your son, enjoying the cows and the giant squash and the fuzzy pink baby pigs.

Guess I'm stuck on gratitude again. But then, don't we all need to get a bit more fixated on thankfulness? So thank You Lord for the fair and for family and for fall and for food and for Four H exhibits and for fried dough (wow, and that's just with the letter "F" at the fair--we could be here all day if I went through the alphabet!).

But seriously, what a world, what a life our Lord has given us. Not perfect... though one day, praise Him, it will be... but pretty spectacular nonetheless. And if this earth and this life, though so marred by sin, can be so beautiful and so satisfying, imagine what heaven will be like. So far beyond anything we can ever any imagine or hope--and right at this minute our Savior is preparing it all for each of His children.

So thank You Lord. Again. And again. Thank You for this day. Thank You for the promise of heaven. Thank You most of all for the blood that flowed and the grace He bestowed. And to You be the glory.

Pilgrims and the List

Thanksgiving is coming--one of my favorite times of the year! In fact, if you stopped by our house right now, you would be surrounded by pilgrims and indians in nearly every room. If I could, I'd put out all those pilgrims the first day of september (but my husband insists I wait until Oct. 1st so we don't look like dingbats--but it's a painful wait for me!). How can you not love the pilgrims? Starving to death those first harsh winters, sick and dying by the score, desperately trying to scratch out a way to survive on those harsh, unforgiving shores in the freezing cold. No warm, inviting homes, no bathrooms, no hot showers, no hot food, no clean, dry clothes, no antibiotics or cough medicine, no extended families to comfort and encourage, no schools, no libraries, no stores or restaurants to go grab a bite of food or a roll of toilet paper, no vacations or rest breaks. Just backbreaking toil, gnawing hunger, unrelenting disease, and discouraging and frightening prospects of a tenuous tomorrow.

And yet, against all odds, against all reason, they rejoiced. They found grounds to thank the Lord they knew had brought them to these shores and would somehow, someway, bring them through. They chose gratitude over despair, and so I gaze at the little pilgrim lady on my table holding her Bible in one hand and a bowl of vegetables in the other, and I give thanks for such a legacy of strength and faith and hope. If they could give thanks, how can I not do likewise?

There is just nothing like intentionally slowing down for a moment and giving thanks. We are always rushing around, busy, efficient, sometimes overwhelmed, preoccupied, and self-absorbed that we miss the continuous stream of blessings and gifts sent our way from our ever faithful Lord. And when we forget to be thankful, life can grind us down and wear us out. Thankfulness, on the other hand, transforms the mundane into the miraculous, the long and laborious into the suddenly sacred.

Sarah Ban Breathnach expressed it this way: "Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world." Amen. And that golden bridge of praise carries us from despair and desperation to the other side of hope and expectation that our all-wise and loving God is still in control and working powerfully even when we cannot see Him or feel Him.

But we must make the choice of gratitude over grumpiness. Being thankful over busyness or worry or preoccupation. Gratitude, I have found, is not my default position. Rather, I tend far too quickly to complain or criticize or fear. The Scriptures are the surest antedote to replace selfish and prideful discontentment with joyous thankfulness. Everyday now at our house, we eat on placemats proclaiming God's words of gratitude and grace: "Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name." (I Chron. 16:8) "Let us come before Him with thanksgiving." (Ps. 95:2) "... glorify Him with thanksgiving." (Ps. 69:30) Open your Bible and I daresay you will be hard pressed not to find a verse on gratitude and praise--they are everywhere!

Why does God urge us to be thankful? Well, of course, because He is an awesome, omnipotent, infinite, gracious, merciful, loving Father and so is deserving of all praise. But more than that, He knows that gratitude transforms His people and brings them joy, even in the midst of the hardest of circumstances. I have seen it over and over again in my life--a whispered word of thanks, a chorus of a praise song, a sudden recognition of a seemingly common little blessing (like the hoot of the owl or the cardinal's splash of crimson on the greenway)--and the darkness is dispelled and in floods the Light.

Recently I have been reading the remarkable little book, One Thousand Gifts, and the author shares her own epiphany about the transformative power of gratitude. She began keeping a list of all the daily gifts she was experiencing in her life, for as she declares, "... joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy." And how many countless gifts He lavishes upon us every single day that we completely miss or ignore! The cool breeze of autumn, the smell of fires, the crunching of leaves underfoot, the warmth of the sun, the giggles of a child, the consolation of a friend. Warm chocolate chip cookies (well, chocolate of any kind whatsoever!), hot baths, loyal dogs, comfortable shoes, steaming coffee, great books, soaring birds, lilting music, family and friends...

Don't miss the gift just because of it's size or commoness. One more quote from One Thousand Gifts: "Do not disdain the small. The whole of the life--even the hard--is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole... There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up."

So today, I am giving thanks for the Almighty, all powerful God of the great and of the infinitesimal. For we serve an unfathomable God who raises the dead and heals the desperately ill, but Who also allows me to hug my children and chat with my husband and hear the song of the mockingbird and eat that terrible-but-O-so-delicious fair food, and read to my 10 year old in bed, and laugh with a dear friend, and take a deep breath, and observe the brilliant blue sky, and walk with my sweet old dog, and open my Bible to be fed and restored and revived again and again. Who could deserve such a life? Who could ever warrant such grace as He has poured out upon every one of us over and over--in His Son, in His blessings, even in the challenges He allows in each of our lives.

Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord! How about you--will you start your list today? Will you join Paul in "giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father?" (Eph. 5:20) He wrote that in prison--what's your excuse? Take a moment right now to ponder and praise, and start your own list. And to God, the gracious, generous Gift-giver, be the all the glory.

Today

We have been studying the wonderful book of Hebrews in Bible study this year. If you want to consider and appreciate and love the Lord Jesus in a whole new way, read Hebrews! It is all about Jesus. But I was so struck by the word "Today" repeated several times in chapter 3 and 4. "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion" (3:7 and 15). "But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (3:13). "Again, He appoints a certain day, 'Today,' saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, 'Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.'" (4:7) Do you get the impression that "Today" constitutes a mighty important concept to the Lord?

We all know it all too well--none of us is guaranteed tomorrow. God have given us the gift of the "precious present." We have today, and He gives us the choice of how we choose to spend His gift of these 24 hours. Will we spent it worrying and fretting about tomorrow--a tomorrow we may never have? We will expend today regretting and rehashing the mistakes of yesterday? Will we completely miss the myriad gifts of today--from the piercing blue of the sky to the song of the mockingbird to the hug of a child to the beloved voice and laughter of a spouse or a parent--because we are consumed with next week or last week or even later today?

How often I have missed it! Forgive me Lord! I missed and forfeited the joy and peace and strength You had in store for me today because I of anxiety or ingratitude or fear or prayer-less striving or plain old disbelief. When God speaks to us today, His Word commands that we not harden our hearts and that we believe and obey... today. Not, "I'll think about it and maybe start tomorrow." Nope, we are to do it today. Trust today. Enjoy His presence today. Fix our eyes on Jesus today. Read His Word today. Repent and stop worrying today. Act on His prompting to encourage that individual or write that letter or call that person or deal with that habit or confess that sin. And do it TODAY.

Now, I don't know about you, but I am the grand master of "Tomorrow." I'll start cleaning out the clutter tomorrow. I'll write her tomorrow. We decide we'll start writing or reading or doing devotions with our children or encouraging our spouse or doing whatever it is that God has called us to do tomorrow. But I recently heard David Jeremiah say something so convicting on this. He stated that "today" is God's word and "tomorrow" is satan's word. When God tells us to do something, the space between hearing it and doing it doesn't belong to God but to the enemy. God calls us to do it today, but the enemy says just do it tomorrow.

What are you, what am I, doing with that space between God's Word and our acting (or failing to act) upon His Word?

The great evangelist, D.L. Moody, would often preach in locations for 4 or 5 days at a time. Whenever he preached on the first night, he would often close by telling his listeners to go him and really think about what he had told them and then to come back the next night. One night at one of his meetings in Chicago, he ended with those usual words urging the people to return the next night. Tragically, however, that October night in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned over 4 square miles of the city and killed hundreds of it's citizens in one of the worst disasters in this nation in the 19th century. Many in Moody's audience perished in that terrible fire and for them, there was no tomorrow night.

Moody never again asked his listeners to go home, think about it, and come back tomorrow. He had learned the power of today--and he called on his listeners to heed the voice of God, make a decision, and act on it today.

"This is the day that the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Ps. 118:24). Do it today. And to God, the Lord who is the same yesterday and today and forever, be all the glory.

The Left Hook

Our boys love to play golf. Now there are a lot of things I love and can appreciate about this game--it is played outdoors in the fresh air, on a verdant carpet of green that my poor yard can never attain, at a relaxing pace that allows (usually) for good conversation, and it requires integrity, patience, wisdom, honesty, perseverance, flexibility, and the ability to scramble and deal with adversity. All wonderful traits that we desperately need and pray for our children to possess. Now, let me first confess, that I am a terrible, wretched golfer. My 10 year old beats me like a drum, so I simply prefer to walk along and enjoy watching my children play, reveling in God's creation and the wonder of the beauty and variety of trees and bushes and birds and animals (we've seen all kinds of animals on the golf course from deer to foxes to a bear!).

But the only exception to this rule is watching my boys play in a golf tournament. This clearly reveals my sin nature. Suddenly, I am all pulsing worry and anxiousness. I lose all sense of perspective, and life and death hangs on those missed putts and rebellious drives lost in the woods. Sins of pride vie with worry and discouragement and selfishness as I walk along and ask God to help my son... and help me! Lord, help shallow, selfish, sinful me!

Yesterday we watched our oldest son play in a college tournament (first time I had ever watched college golf--brought out my sin nature of worry to a whole new level). Right at the moment he is having trouble with his swing--specifically his drive, which is usually his strong suit. Somehow he has developed a small glitch that is causing his drive to hook to the left. And in case you are not familiar with golf, this is not a good thing. He was fighting it all day yesterday, and sometimes he would be okay and hit a good drive and things would be going along fine. And then suddenly, there it came, the dreaded left hook and off the ball sailed into the thick scrub on the left side, lost. My stomach knots up now just remembering it.

Bless his heart, he persevered and kept at it, never getting outwardly upset, and just kept trying and fighting that left hook all the way to the end of the round. But I woke early this morning and just couldn't help but think: that is me and my sinful bent. As the words of one of my very favorite hymns puts it: "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love; Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above." We are so prone to wander. So prone to leave the Lord we love and follow our own inclinations and desires that always ultimately leave us empty and broken. So prone to be going along just fine and then, wham, that left hook strikes and we wonder how on earth we got so far off track and out into the scrub and swamps of life.

But, praise God, He knew all about our left hook. And our slice. And our whiffs (for you non golfers, these are all golf terms which translate "bad shot"). He knew our tendency to wander and leave Him and His perfect plan, and so He sent the sinless Savior, not just take us out of the ditch and the scrub, not just to straighten us out, not just to show us how to live the right way (those thank the Lord He does all of these!), but also to live in us and with us and to empower us by His Spirit to be His children and walk in His ways.

My precious son will keep fighting the good fight of that left hook. But I know that I'm just one devastating left hook after another-- O, but I have a Savior and His precious and powerful name is Jesus. And with Him, I can walk today in His victory over sin. I may stumble, I may still find myself out there in the scrub sometimes, but when I turn to Him in repentance, He'll straighten me out and strengthen me and set me back on His perfect path. Give Him your left hook and watch Him, the Almighty, Omnipotent, Omniscient Lord, go to work. And to Him be all the glory.