We have all suffered an unimaginable loss. Our dear friends' precious child--their beloved Wynn--has gone to heaven, and we all hurt and ache deeply, profoundly. We ache for the earthly loss of this priceless, wondrous girl who was truly a shimmering light in this dark world. We ache for our dear friends whose loss we simply cannot begin to fathom. We ache for the sorrow, separation, and pain in this world that was caused so long ago by the bitter poison of sin.
"Oh come, Lord Jesus, come," we cry out. We cannot bear it. Our friends cannot bear this burden alone.
And yet, they are not alone. You have given us to them--we, their friends, we, the Body of Christ, to be Your tear-wiping hands, Your servant feet, Your loving, compassionate heart. Help us, Lord. Show us how we can love, how we can help, how we can weep with those who weep, strengthen those with feeble arms and weak knees, and pour Your healing balm on those with broken hearts and wounded souls. Help us be You incarnated as loving, caring friends. Enable us to be Jesus with skin on to these ones we love so dearly.
Please allow us somehow, someway, to help bear their burden. Oh Father, if only we could shoulder some of that pain. Let me, let us, carry it for them, for at least a while.
We know that You, only You--who knows the infinite loss of Your beloved Son--can truly understand the depth of their anguish. Only You can be the love, the grace, the strength, the peace that they need. Only You can be their light in this darkness and their peace in this chaos. But help us to be instruments of all that You are and all that You give.
"We don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon You." (2 Chron.20:12)
Please come Lord Jesus, come.
We're all struggling so deeply with this--"Why, Lord, why?" we cry out. Yet thank You, Jesus, that You can handle all our doubts and fears, all our accusations and frustrations with why You--who are all good, all loving, and all powerful--would allow this. Thank You, tender but strong Lion of Judah, that we can express our every emotion to You...and You hear. You grieve with us. And You love us as our loving, perfect Father, our Abba.
Help us to trust even when we cannot see, to have faith that overcomes our fears, and to believe in Your promises despite our wounded feelings.
You know what it is to lose a priceless, cherished child--Your Son. Your only beloved Son. Only You didn't lose Him...You gave Him. You sacrificed Your one and only Son that we might have life. Abundant, eternal life. Jesus was forsaken on the cross by His Heavenly Father that we might never, ever be forsaken. Such love, such sacrifice, we cannot understand or imagine. But this we know: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
That kind of limitless love, that kind of scandalous grace we cannot begin to comprehend. But when we look to the cross, we see Your love incarnate...Your love not just displayed, but demonstrated and experienced. We see a love so deep and divine, so unfathomable that that Love--whose name is Jesus--would suffer and die for our sins, for our fears, for our doubts, for our failures, for our weaknesses.
You died that we might live. And because You live, Wynn lives. And because Wynn lives, we know, know, know that we will see that beautiful, brilliant, winsome, precious, loving beloved daughter of the King of kings again. Fully healed...and radiant...and glorious. In the midst of our terrible pain and sorrow, we can still say thank You, Jesus, thank You.
And so even as we grieve deeply, help us to keep our eyes fixed on You, the author and perfecter of our faith, as we run the race You have set before each of us.(Heb.12:1-2) Wynn has finished her race triumphantly, and we praise and thank You for her, for her beautiful life, and for her family. Equip and help us, Father, to love and encourage her family, our greatly loved friends. Love them with Your perfect love, Jesus our Good Shepherd, and give them the peace that passes all understanding that only You can give. And fill us Holy Spirit that we might be Your healing balm, Your wisdom, Your compassion, Your tenderness, Your hope, Your light in this world.
Come Lord Jesus, come. To You be the glory.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Bingley...and faith rather than fear
It's raining, blowing and grey outside today...a reminder that we're all waiting and praying for Dorian to head out to sea and away from our state and our coastline. Please Lord, spare those in Dorian's potential path and send this hurricane east and away, far away from hurting any more folks.
But I'm also thankful--thankful to be inside and dry. Thankful to have electricity. Thankful for the warmth and comfort of a mug of tea. Thankful for a contented companion lying at my feet. And thankful for the gift of holding in my lap the very words of Almighty God . His words breathed out on a page, just as fresh and warm and nourishing as the moment He first uttered them into life. Thank You, Father, for the treasure of family, friends, home, health, quietness, and the time--even if only a few minutes--to hear You, worship You, thank You, and speak to You.
And I'm also remembering the beauty of Your mountains--what a Creator You are!--and a simple lesson on fear that You taught us this weekend. (Because only the Lord knows how He constantly He needs to remind and encourage yours truly--His forgetful, fretful, often faithless child-- of His forever faithfulness, grace, and abounding sufficiency!)
You see, our dog, Bingley loves the mountains. He loves the wonderful walks along deserted mountain roads. He loves the ready availability of huge sticks.
He loves the magnificent view from the 17th hole green...okay, actually he just loves getting to walk along with all of his family on the golf course.
He loves the cooler weather, the abundance of deer to chase, and the tennis balls that often bounce into our yard from the nearby tennis courts. He really does love the mountains.
But there's one thing that spoils what would otherwise be unadulterated joy on his part--fear. Specifically, fear that we will pack up and leave him. Bingley's pretty much continually on edge in the mountains and whenever any sort of bag is located anywhere near the door, his fear gage begins rising. Whenever we leave to go anywhere without taking him--oh mercy, terror. And when it's actually time to pack up and leave, well, forget about it. He's beside himself, ready to race into the car and sit there all day if that's what it takes to avoid being left behind. He's a ball of anxiety.
It's pathetic, really, because do you think for one single second we'd ever "forget" to take Bingley with us when we leave to drive home? Have we ever forgotten to take him back with us? Of course not! We've never forgotten him, nor have we ever left him. Our track record on that is spotless--because we really love our dog! I can say with one hundred percent confidence that we will never ever forget to take him!
Moreover, we feed him everyday, twice a day. Never forgotten, not even once. We take him for a walk everyday--rain or shine, blazing hot or freezing cold. Never forgotten, not even once. We give him those fancy smancy sweet potato dog chews everyday...I could go on and on.
The point is, Bingley has nothing to fear, and he has every reason in the world for complete faith and trust in his people. But he doesn't. I reckon that's because he doesn't remember--or somehow in his doggy brain discounts--all of our never failing faithfulness in the past.
Hmmm. Sound familiar?
Isn't our fear ultimately a mark of our forgetfulness?
We're filled with fear because we've forgotten (or utterly discounted) God's relentless goodness and faithfulness to us in the past. We forget--or we choose not to recall--how He strengthened and helped us through all those impossible-seeming challenges or sorrows we faced last year, or last month, or last week. We forget who He is and His character. We forget that He was and is always good, always loving, always forgiving, always full of grace--even when we were and are utterly undeserving and unlovable. We forget His Word and His promises.
And what's the antidote to this irrational, amnesiac fear? It's to read, remember, and rehearse. Read His Word and His promises. His Word is a treasure trove of wisdom and strength. A few examples from just one Psalm: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?" (Ps.27:1) "Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, though war arise against me, yet I will be confident." (Ps.27:3) "I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" (Ps.27:13-14)
Read His Word and His promises. Remember His character, His faithfulness, His deliverances, and His goodness to you in the past. And rehearse those promises--say them out loud. Share with someone else how God delivered you in the past. Perhaps most importantly, preach it to yourself! Rather than allowing fear to do the talking, you do the preaching to yourself. Remind yourself of God's Word, His faithfulness, His goodness.
He hasn't failed you yet...why on earth do you think He will fail you this time? He was faithful then...whey would you fear that He who is changeless and perfect, won't be faithful today...and tomorrow and next year? He's never forsaken you or forgotten you before...don't you realize He will never forsake or forget you in the future?
If you ever doubt that, look at the cross. Look at the lengths to which your Heavenly Father went to save you and to demonstrate His love. He sent His beloved Son to die for your sins and rise from the dead to give you eternal life. He promised that He would never ever leave you or forsake you. It's a promise signed with His blood. He hasn't changed, and His Word is still true.
So fear, take a hike! You're just as useless and ridiculous as Bingley's absurd fear of being left. Fear, you're not welcome or wanted here anymore, because we have a forever faithful, eternally good, infinitely wise, and awesomely powerful Lord. We will trust in Him and not be afraid.
Don't forget and be fearful. Instead, read...remember...rehearse and be filled and fueled with faith in the your Heavenly Father.
To God--the forever faithful One--be all the glory.
But I'm also thankful--thankful to be inside and dry. Thankful to have electricity. Thankful for the warmth and comfort of a mug of tea. Thankful for a contented companion lying at my feet. And thankful for the gift of holding in my lap the very words of Almighty God . His words breathed out on a page, just as fresh and warm and nourishing as the moment He first uttered them into life. Thank You, Father, for the treasure of family, friends, home, health, quietness, and the time--even if only a few minutes--to hear You, worship You, thank You, and speak to You.
And I'm also remembering the beauty of Your mountains--what a Creator You are!--and a simple lesson on fear that You taught us this weekend. (Because only the Lord knows how He constantly He needs to remind and encourage yours truly--His forgetful, fretful, often faithless child-- of His forever faithfulness, grace, and abounding sufficiency!)
You see, our dog, Bingley loves the mountains. He loves the wonderful walks along deserted mountain roads. He loves the ready availability of huge sticks.
He loves the magnificent view from the 17th hole green...okay, actually he just loves getting to walk along with all of his family on the golf course.
He loves the cooler weather, the abundance of deer to chase, and the tennis balls that often bounce into our yard from the nearby tennis courts. He really does love the mountains.
But there's one thing that spoils what would otherwise be unadulterated joy on his part--fear. Specifically, fear that we will pack up and leave him. Bingley's pretty much continually on edge in the mountains and whenever any sort of bag is located anywhere near the door, his fear gage begins rising. Whenever we leave to go anywhere without taking him--oh mercy, terror. And when it's actually time to pack up and leave, well, forget about it. He's beside himself, ready to race into the car and sit there all day if that's what it takes to avoid being left behind. He's a ball of anxiety.
It's pathetic, really, because do you think for one single second we'd ever "forget" to take Bingley with us when we leave to drive home? Have we ever forgotten to take him back with us? Of course not! We've never forgotten him, nor have we ever left him. Our track record on that is spotless--because we really love our dog! I can say with one hundred percent confidence that we will never ever forget to take him!
Moreover, we feed him everyday, twice a day. Never forgotten, not even once. We take him for a walk everyday--rain or shine, blazing hot or freezing cold. Never forgotten, not even once. We give him those fancy smancy sweet potato dog chews everyday...I could go on and on.
The point is, Bingley has nothing to fear, and he has every reason in the world for complete faith and trust in his people. But he doesn't. I reckon that's because he doesn't remember--or somehow in his doggy brain discounts--all of our never failing faithfulness in the past.
Hmmm. Sound familiar?
Isn't our fear ultimately a mark of our forgetfulness?
We're filled with fear because we've forgotten (or utterly discounted) God's relentless goodness and faithfulness to us in the past. We forget--or we choose not to recall--how He strengthened and helped us through all those impossible-seeming challenges or sorrows we faced last year, or last month, or last week. We forget who He is and His character. We forget that He was and is always good, always loving, always forgiving, always full of grace--even when we were and are utterly undeserving and unlovable. We forget His Word and His promises.
And what's the antidote to this irrational, amnesiac fear? It's to read, remember, and rehearse. Read His Word and His promises. His Word is a treasure trove of wisdom and strength. A few examples from just one Psalm: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?" (Ps.27:1) "Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, though war arise against me, yet I will be confident." (Ps.27:3) "I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" (Ps.27:13-14)
Read His Word and His promises. Remember His character, His faithfulness, His deliverances, and His goodness to you in the past. And rehearse those promises--say them out loud. Share with someone else how God delivered you in the past. Perhaps most importantly, preach it to yourself! Rather than allowing fear to do the talking, you do the preaching to yourself. Remind yourself of God's Word, His faithfulness, His goodness.
He hasn't failed you yet...why on earth do you think He will fail you this time? He was faithful then...whey would you fear that He who is changeless and perfect, won't be faithful today...and tomorrow and next year? He's never forsaken you or forgotten you before...don't you realize He will never forsake or forget you in the future?
If you ever doubt that, look at the cross. Look at the lengths to which your Heavenly Father went to save you and to demonstrate His love. He sent His beloved Son to die for your sins and rise from the dead to give you eternal life. He promised that He would never ever leave you or forsake you. It's a promise signed with His blood. He hasn't changed, and His Word is still true.
So fear, take a hike! You're just as useless and ridiculous as Bingley's absurd fear of being left. Fear, you're not welcome or wanted here anymore, because we have a forever faithful, eternally good, infinitely wise, and awesomely powerful Lord. We will trust in Him and not be afraid.
Don't forget and be fearful. Instead, read...remember...rehearse and be filled and fueled with faith in the your Heavenly Father.
To God--the forever faithful One--be all the glory.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Darkness to light
Our family loves the mountains. The astounding beauty all around, the coolness, the brilliant sunrises and sunsets, the quieter, calmer pace, the glorious views, the s'mores (mountains=s'mores for our family), the hiking, the fishing, the golfing, the tennis and on and on.
One of my very favorite times is the early morning. It's remarkable the way, every morning, the sky would be inky black and everything was utterly dark. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But then suddenly, shockingly an orange-hued glow would gently light up the sky. It quite literally seemed to happen within a matter of a minute or two--from pitch darkness to an orange-stained horizon. This was that moment the other morning--
And then, just as astoundingly, the sun abruptly makes an appearance and, again, within a matter of only a couple of minutes moves from a mere sliver over in the horizon to a full-orbed ball of fire.
I couldn't help but think of the old adage, "It's darkest just before the dawn." Just a tired old cliche, right?
Well, those mountain sunrises beg to differ, for they clearly bore that truth out--extraordinarily black predawns suddenly and utterly overwhelmed by dawn's glorious illumination.
Oh if only we could remember that perspective in our daily struggles of life. It might look dark, but the light of God's dawn is coming!
The thing is, the sun doesn't disappear or go away. Our problem lies not in the sun's absence but in our limited perspective. The sun's there, but we're unable to see it due to the turning of the earth.
Just as the sun is there all along--only we couldn't momentarily see it--so The Son is there. He is always there. And He's in the business of decimating darkness, redeeming difficulties, and harnessing the hardships of our lives and using them for our good and His glory. Whether we can see Him or not, He's there. He's moving. He's working. And He's lighting our darkness.
"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:4-5)
There's a lot of darkness in our world, and sometimes we can feel as if it's getting darker.
But God's Word promises that "I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of life." (John 8:12)
Jesus is the unshakable, unstoppable, unconquerable Light of the world. And if we follow Him, we will not walk in darkness. No matter how we might feel or how circumstances might appear, the Light of the world is there--transforming, illuminating, redeeming, reviving in innumerable ways we often cannot see and do not know.
Praise God that the sun He created always rises. Every new morning, He sends His sun to warm and illumine our world, and He's promised to give us new mercies, new grace for each new day's needs. Because great--infinitely great--is His faithfulness (Lam.3:22-23).
And if you can trust His sun to rise tomorrow morning, then you can trust, you can know, that His Son will rise victorious over any darkness in your life. The Light of the world, the Light of life, is with you, for you, before you, behind you, beside you and within you. And He makes all things, all things, beautiful in His time (Ecc.3:11)...in His glorious, darkness-busting, dawn-illuminating time.
To God--to the Light of the world--be all the glory.
One of my very favorite times is the early morning. It's remarkable the way, every morning, the sky would be inky black and everything was utterly dark. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. But then suddenly, shockingly an orange-hued glow would gently light up the sky. It quite literally seemed to happen within a matter of a minute or two--from pitch darkness to an orange-stained horizon. This was that moment the other morning--
Well, those mountain sunrises beg to differ, for they clearly bore that truth out--extraordinarily black predawns suddenly and utterly overwhelmed by dawn's glorious illumination.
Oh if only we could remember that perspective in our daily struggles of life. It might look dark, but the light of God's dawn is coming!
The thing is, the sun doesn't disappear or go away. Our problem lies not in the sun's absence but in our limited perspective. The sun's there, but we're unable to see it due to the turning of the earth.
Just as the sun is there all along--only we couldn't momentarily see it--so The Son is there. He is always there. And He's in the business of decimating darkness, redeeming difficulties, and harnessing the hardships of our lives and using them for our good and His glory. Whether we can see Him or not, He's there. He's moving. He's working. And He's lighting our darkness.
"In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:4-5)
There's a lot of darkness in our world, and sometimes we can feel as if it's getting darker.
But God's Word promises that "I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the Light of life." (John 8:12)
Jesus is the unshakable, unstoppable, unconquerable Light of the world. And if we follow Him, we will not walk in darkness. No matter how we might feel or how circumstances might appear, the Light of the world is there--transforming, illuminating, redeeming, reviving in innumerable ways we often cannot see and do not know.
Praise God that the sun He created always rises. Every new morning, He sends His sun to warm and illumine our world, and He's promised to give us new mercies, new grace for each new day's needs. Because great--infinitely great--is His faithfulness (Lam.3:22-23).
And if you can trust His sun to rise tomorrow morning, then you can trust, you can know, that His Son will rise victorious over any darkness in your life. The Light of the world, the Light of life, is with you, for you, before you, behind you, beside you and within you. And He makes all things, all things, beautiful in His time (Ecc.3:11)...in His glorious, darkness-busting, dawn-illuminating time.
To God--to the Light of the world--be all the glory.
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