Tag: obedience

Rain Down

Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 11; Psalms 95–96; Isaiah 39; Revelation 9 

Deuteronomy 11:13-16
And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them;

Good Morning & Happy Tuesday!

As only God can do, the rain perfectly comes down as I reflect on where to start for this week. God has his perfect timing for all seasons. He has his perfect timing planned for you today. Enjoy the moments! I pick up my raindrop filled bible and journal and head in.

In Deuteronomy 11 Moses reminds the Israelite’s to love the Lord our God, keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, his commandments. In addition we shall lay His words in your heart and soul, binding them to your hand and teaching them to your children. Now it may sound easy but we know that even the Israelite’s witnessed amazing miracles like the splitting of the Red Sea and they still had trouble remaining faithful.(v. 3-6) Moses reminded the Israelite’s and he reminds us to obey and remain faithful. We all need this invitation or reminder.  For myself, waking up in the morning reading the beautiful heartfelt and God-filled journal writings in addition to the daily reading is that reminder.  It is my highlight of those early hours that helps me through the day.

There are miracles all around us if and when we look. As I start to write this Saturday morning it’s the rain. Tonight, I watch a sliver of a moon in the midst of a red to blue sunset.  I’m filled even as I do drive my son around trying to get him to sleep:). I pray you look for those moments today and praise Him. In the season of deadlines, summer schedules for our children, and everything else that can direct your day, love the Lord, obey Him and serve. He will provide everything you need. He always has, he always will.

God has given us the Bible that has shared a panoramic view of his amazing miracles. This picture is being developed and divinely planned out by Him still now. We are part of this picture. Today, his Word lives in and through us. If you haven’t spent time reading the daily scriptures that go with these journals I encourage you to wake up 15 minutes earlier to feel and allow scripture to live in you. I guarantee the start of your days will change for the better.  They have for me.  He provides lessons from the past, instructions for the present, and opportunities in the future to strengthen our love and faith.

In verse 26 God gives the Israelite’s a choice between a blessing and a curse. A blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, and a curse, if you don’t obey the commandments, turning aside from the way he is commanding you today, to go after other gods. We have this same choice today. We can live for ourselves and other gods or live for the Lord our God who promises eternal life.

What choices will you make today? What gods will surround you pulling you away from our eternal God?  Acts 3:19 motivates us, “So change the way you think and act, and turn [to God] to have your sins removed”.

In addition, Psalms 95 says, “if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. Come into his presence with thanksgiving and when you’re put to the test, remain faithful”.  As we wrap session 8 of Follow by Andy Stanley I encourage you to refuse to Unfollow.  Keep God close.  Along your faith journey you will be tempted to Unfollow.  But to whom shall we go? John 6:68-69 says Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God. Many things will test us.  His words are eternal.

Moses was speaking to the Israelite’s, he is speaking to us. Don’t be deceived today.

Dear Almighty Father, Show me your ways, Lord, teacher me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.  Psalm 25:4-5

Ask yourself today,

  • Did I spend time in Scripture today?
  • Did scripture live in me?
  • Did I grow in awe and wonder of God today?

Obedient To Our Beliefs

Ladder

Numbers 5; Psalm 39; Song of Solomon 3; Hebrews 3

We lead extraordinarily busy lives. Between the pressures and problems of our work lives and the turmoil of training children to have healthy lives, we find ourselves chasing one thing after another, never stopping. If you are like me, there is a still small voice in your heart that is crying out for more. So what do we do? We choose more. We think that working harder, maybe earning that next promotion, will finally silence that nagging voice. We transfer the belief of more to our kids, assuming that my happiness comes from more, theirs does too. We add new activities and focus attempt them more intensely. The result: more pressure, more turmoil and more problems.  Too often these become manifested in depression, substance abuse and a myriad of illnesses. Exactly the opposite of what our heart is crying out for and definitely not the life that God promises us. He is calling us to one simple thing, obedience.

I don’t think of myself as disobedient. Maybe that is why I find myself annoyed when I read Biblical truths about disobedience. In fact, Instead of translating disobedience truthfully, I reinterpret it with positive words like progressive and enlightened.   These twists of truth allow me to avoid guilt while fully embracing, even amplifying my individuality. My prayers are also shaped by this belief. I ask God to help me in the places I am falling short. They sound like, “God give me that promotion,” or, “please help Junior play well today. He deserves to win.” All seems well until God doesn’t perform for us. When we fail to get recognized at work or our kids fall into trouble, we accuse Him of not providing and our restlessness accelerates. James 4:3 confirms this, “you ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Today, in Hebrews 3, we read a related comment. It says, “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 3:15).

If we want to have rest as God promises throughout Scripture, we must look toward obedience. This means that I can no longer avoid the hard work of transformation. The first step of obedience is listening.  When I pause and listen for God, I realize that the still small voice in my heart is not asking for more. Instead, recognizing that this is the still small voice of God, I hear Him calling me, calling me to obedience. Waiting in silence, He convicts me that my past re-interpretations are nothing more than a hard heart.   This hardness gives way to misbelief in my individuality and self-importance.  According to the Bible, they are more than misbelief, they are unbelief  (Hebrews 3:19).  My unanswered prayers, therefore, are not the result of God’s punishment or wrath, but my unbelief!  OUCH!

There is hope. When we turn our cry of desperation toward Jesus, stopping to listen, he responds. Thankfully, he does not ask for more than that.  When we do, He assures us of the rest we are looking for. (Matthew 11:28-29)

I found myself captured by the picture I added to this post.  Our stories parallel the boy’s burning of the ladder rungs.  He believes that the fire will keep him alive while we believe that “more” will lead to rest. His comfort is temporary, short-lived even.  What about ours?  Proverbs 14:12 says it clearly.  “There is a way that seems right to a man that leads to death.”  

Thanks to Pawel Kuczynski for creating a fantastic illustration of how our true beliefs shape our actions.

 

 

Dead Weight

stretcher gurney for patient in hospital (blur background and wooden table for displaying your product)

Leviticus 22, Psalms 28-29, Ecclesiastes 5, 2 Timothy 1

I was really looking forward to sharing this new book of the Bible I found called Ecclesiastes. Well, it was new to me anyway. I’ve been working for a few days in a row at the hospital. Now that I’m sitting down to write and catching up on my reading I see that this short book has been the subject of a few reflections this week. I’ve been drawing out a little “blueprint” of Ecclesiastes all week. Of course, we already know that it was written by King David’s son, Solomon almost 3,000 years ago. It seems to me that nearly nothing could be the same then as it is now. But, with a closer look, there are 5 key themes that are very relatable.

  • Searching
    • Without God there will be no true pleasure or happiness, searching for wisdom, knowledge or joy is futile outside of Him.
  • Emptiness
    • Fill your life with God. The cure for emptiness is Him.
  • Work
    • God gives you the ability and opportunity to work so that you can use your time to glorify Him.
  • Death
    • God gives us hope that goes beyond death
  • Wisdom
    • We must get to know God and honor him in order to have wisdom

See NIV, ESV and HCSB study bibles for more on these themes, I did NOT come up with them myself

When you place Solomon’s words in those 5 categories, it brings us back to what I think is the most important theme: without God life is empty. I spent the weekend thinking that the lessons presented to us in Ecclesiastes are darker and more serious than Proverbs. Tonight as I sit and reflect on how to really bring them alive in my life, I realized that God had given me an example through death.

My Saturday started in the basement of the hospital. I’m a physical therapist there and I cover a weekend or two a month. I had my clipboard in hand with a long list of patients to be seen for the day. As I punched the up button on the elevator, a security guard rolled up with a metal gurney. A few years of experience told me that she was on a transport mission. A patient had died, the family had come and gone and now it was time for the body to be moved. We rode up together with few words passing between us. We exited on the same floor and I went about my business checking charts. Next to me the security guard was focused on her task, checking boxes on a list and packing personal items into a box. It’s important to take care of sensitive matters at the hospital before visiting hours begin. I asked the guard which room she was going to, so that I could avoid bringing patients into that hallway. Before she could answer, a nurse turned and said, “We could really use some help lifting the patient, it’s kinda like dead weight.”

A life. Transformed in an instant from a vibrant presence to dead weight. For the record, this nurse is a patient, compassionate and kind person. This ill-timed pun wasn’t meant to diminish the life lost. It did get me thinking though about my own dead weight on this earth. The HCSB Study Bible opens the book of Ecclesiastes with this introduction:

“The Bible is never shy about confronting painful truths or hard questions. The book of Ecclesiastes faces the issue of how we can find meaning on life in light of the seemingly futile nature of everything. It will not allow the reader to retreat into superficial answers. It does not answer the problem by comforting us with hollow slogans. To the contrary, its motto is “Everything Is Futile.” But by forcing us to face the futility of human existence, it guides us to a life free of empty purpose and deceitful vindication.”

I got to thinking about the patient that I didn’t know. He or she did not take wealth or poverty with them. The struggles he or she faced in illness and death are now gone. I wonder, was it a life well lived? What truly held weight at the end and what simply didn’t matter anymore? My favorite verse in today’s scripture is this:

“For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear.” Ecclesiastes 5:7

 Am I so full of words, and dreams and aspirations that there is no room left for obedience to God? The foundation of this teaching is our eventual mortality. We can try and try to impress God with our gifts and promises but in the end we cannot deceive Him. He calls us to be humble and obedient. He is asking us to depend on him and his grace. Without Him, life is meaningless. Back in the hospital room as the clean white sheet was drawn up and the wheels began to turn toward the door, I saw an end as well as a beginning. I asked God to lead me into fulfillment in Him. I asked for more reminders to broaden my vision from the context of today into his plan of eternity. As I heard the elevator ding and the heavy doors slide open, I realized that there is no timeline. There is no promise of tomorrow, only the promise of right now. Lord, help us to seize this moment, this Monday, this week. Help us to delight in you here until we are there…