Author: This Day's Thought

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Joni Eareckson Tada — Just think: Every promise God has made…

Just think: Every promise God has ever made finds its fulfillment in Jesus.  God doesn’t just give us grace; he gives us Jesus, the Lord of grace.  If it’s peace, it’s only found in Jesus, the Prince of Peace.  Even life itself is found in the Resurrection and the Life.  Christianity isn’t all that complicated…it’s Jesus.
Joni Eareckson Tada

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Having Faith in the Resurrection, by Eric Elder…

Part 3 of “How To Keep Trusting God, Even In The Face Of Significant Loss”

Happy Easter from our house to yours!  We could all use a dose of faith, and Easter Sunday is a great day to get one.  If you’re struggling with trusting God, even in the face of significant loss, this message is for you.  (If you missed the first two parts, you can read them here and here.)

It’s been almost five months since we took this picture of me and my six kids, not knowing that just two weeks later my wife Lana would pass on to be with the Lord (she was inside resting when this picture was taken, as we were in the middle of a 10-hour filming session for a project to give hope to families facing loss).  Since that day, we’ve had to celebrate seven major holidays without our beloved Lana:  Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, two birthdays, and now Easter.

Each of these “firsts” without her this year could have easily overwhelmed me with grief if it weren’t for my faith in Jesus Christ and the prayers of people like you.

But when Christmas rolled around, God reminded me why we celebrate the holiday at all:  Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the baby who would one day defeat death forever!  While celebrating Christmas was still hard without Lana, God’s reminder of the reason we were celebrating helped me keep a balanced perspective on her life and death…and her new life with Him.

The same holds true for Easter.  While there’s no doubt it’s been hard to go through our Easter traditions this year without Lana, God keeps reminding me of the purpose of this holiday, too.  Easter is the day we remember that Jesus rose from the dead, and because He rose from the dead, we can be assured that all of us who have put our faith in Him will be raised from the dead, too, including my dear wife Lana.  Without Lana here with me this week, it’s already been a different kind of holiday.  I found myself videotaping the kids during an Easter egg hunt so that I could come home and show her the tape, only to remember that she wouldn’t be home when I got there.  But then God reminded me that it’s quite likely that Lana’s not missing a thing.  The Bible says that “we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses,” witnesses who have kept their faith to the end, and remind us to do the same.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1-3).

As sad as it is that I’m having to celebrate Easter without Lana here with me in the flesh, the truth is that without Jesus, there would be no holiday to celebrate at all, and there would be no hope of Lana being raised from the dead either.  So in the midst of my heartache, God keeps reminding me of the whole truth:  not just the truth that she’s gone, but the truth that she’s gone to be with Jesus, and has been raised to a new life in spectacular glory.  And having that whole truth in mind brings His peace to my heart.  As the Bible says:

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

We do have hope.  True hope.  Not a desperate clinging to the mere idea that maybe there’s some kind of life after this life, but a firm faith in the reality that there really is a heaven, and that Jesus is really there, with my beloved Lana right alongside Him.

I don’t want to try to prove to you today that Jesus rose from the dead, but I would like to remind you of the fact that He did rise from the dead and that His resurrection was witnessed by many here on earth.  Not only that, but there were others in the Bible who were once dead who were resurrected to new life, as well, and even they have appeared to people here on earth, too!

As for Jesus’ resurrection, and His appearance to people on earth, listen to some of these verses from the Bible:

“When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had driven seven demons” (Mark 16:9).

“Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country” (Mark 16:12).

“Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; He rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen Him after He had risen” (Mark 16:14).

“Afterward, Jesus appeared again to His disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias” (John 21:1).

“This was now the third time Jesus appeared to His disciples after He was raised from the dead” (John 21:14).

“After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all He appeared to me [Paul]…” (1 Corinthians 15:6-8a).

What’s even more amazing to me, since Lana passed on to be with Jesus, is that I keep reading verses that I’ve read before, but that strike me now in a new light:  that Jesus wasn’t the only one who died and rose again and appeared to people here on earth.  Listen to this!

“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit.  At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.  The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.  They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people” (Matthew 27:50-53).

Not only had Jesus been raised from the dead, but many others had also been raised as well who appeared to many people in Jerusalem.  Even Peter, James and John saw people raised from the dead while Jesus was still living, when they saw Moses and Elijah standing on the mountaintop, talking with Jesus:

“After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.  Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus” (Matthew 17:1-3).

Moses and Elijah were so real to Peter that Peter asked Jesus if he should build a shelter for each one of them, even though they had been dead for thousands of years!  It was a reminder to them, and to me, that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, as Jesus once told the Saducees, the religious leaders who didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead.  Jesus said:

“Now about the dead rising–have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.  You are badly mistaken!” (Mark 12:26-28).

I share all this as a preface to what I’m about to share next.  As with some of the other stories I’ve shared with you recently, I do so with hesitancy as I don’t want you to think I’ve lost my mind.  I’m also not sure what to think of them myself, for I realize I’m still in the midst of grief, and perhaps the grief is clouding how I think and see spiritual things right now.  Then again, perhaps it’s during our most difficult times, when we’re apt to be the closest to God, that we’re best able to see what’s really true!

On New Year’s Eve, I was praying on my knees during a time of worship at a large Christian conference, celebrating the New Year with over 20,000 other believers.  As I knelt there on the floor, I felt as if Lana were leaning down next to me.  She whispered in my ear, as she had done many times before in life:  “I love you, Eric Elder.”   Her voice was as clear and soft and sweet as any time I’d ever heard her say that to me before.  I could almost feel her breath on the side of my face.

The next night I felt her presence again, this time as I lay in bed.  I wrote in my journal the following morning:

“Father, thank You for Lana’s love for me and mine for her.  I miss her Lord.  But how can I be anything but grateful to You for giving her to me to be my wife for so many years.  This morning I woke up and literally felt her arms around me and heard her voice talking to me.  I couldn’t move for several minutes, it was so real, her touch and her words.  I even thought I saw her when I turned my head.  Thank You, Lord, for her continued presence, even if it is in my dreams, or in that state between dreams and wakefulness.  Thank You, Lord, and thank you, Lana.”

I’ve reached up to heaven many times in the last few months and have taken hold of Lana’s arm, only to find the arm of Jesus taking hold of both of us, as He promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us.  He promised us that death would not separate us, for we had put our faith in Him.  He promised us that we would live forever, not just at the end of time, but right now, in abundant life.

As Jesus told Martha in the Bible, after her brother Lazarus died

“Your brother will be raised up.”

To which Martha replied:

“I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.”

To which Jesus replied:

“You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in Me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in Me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?” (John 11:23-26, MSG).

Martha said she believed it.  Lana said she believed it.  And I can say I believe it, too.

As I shared at the celebration of Lana’s life back in November, a good friend of mine sent me this text that helped me to see the reality of Lana’s new life in heaven:

“It is so hard to be in this place, but it is good to know Lana is seeing our Father and Jesus face to face.  She is touching them and hearing their voices, and talking to them about anything and everything she wants to.  Somehow you, because you are one, are part of that.  It takes my breath away.

When I think about it, really think about it, it takes my breath away, too.

This is the great hope that we have in the resurrection, not only that Jesus was raised from the dead, but that all of us who have put our faith in Him will be raised from the dead as well.

As Jonathan Edwards, the great evangelist, said at the funeral of David Brainerd, the great missionary:

“True saints, when absent from the body, are present with the Lord” (quoting the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:8).

As Jesus Himself said to the thief on the cross who was dying next to Him and who had just put his faith in Jesus:

“I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Jesus really did rise from the dead.  And those who put their faith in Him really will rise from the dead, too.

If you’ve never put your faith in Christ, let me encourage you, as Lana would encourage you, as Jesus Himself encouraged you:  put your faith in Jesus Christ today.  Believe that He died for your sins.  Believe that He’s forgiven you of your sins.  And believe that He will raise you to begin a new life with Him, starting right now and forever.  As the Bible says:

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

As we close, let me share one more picture with you.  This is one that we took later on the same day as the picture above, when Lana came out to join us again for the filming session.  Although her body was weak, her spirit was as strong as ever.

At Christmastime I had a hard time deciding which picture to send out with our Christmas letters.  I couldn’t imagine sending out a Christmas picture from now on without Lana in it.  But when I looked at the picture of just me and the kids, I couldn’t help but be thankful for all the blessings I have in my life because Lana’s been a part of it.  So I eventually decided to send out both.

I share these two pictures today because they remind me that I have a choice to make every day.  I can either look at what I’ve lost and be sad, or I can look at what I’ve been given because Lana’s been a part of my life, and be glad.  It’s the same choice we all have to make, every day.

It’s not a matter of looking at the glass as half-full or half-empty, but trusting God that He will provide us with just what we need when we need it.  Zig Ziglar says He teaches advanced math when he says:

You + God = Enough

As the Bible says:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, KJV).

The last few weeks of Lana’s life she was still helping me edit a book that we had been working on together on the life of Saint Nicholas.  After Lana died, I looked at the edits she had made in the margins of the book.  I used a quote in the book that others have used before that says:

“Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it was beautiful.”

In the margin of the book, Lana had written:  “Amen!”

It was another reminder to me that we really are surrounded by “a great cloud of witnesses,” including Lana, who are cheering us on.

Yes, I still cry.  But I can smile, too.  That’s the great hope we have because of the resurrection.

I pray the Lord will bless you richly this Easter and in the days ahead.  He really has risen!  He has risen indeed!

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Mark 16:14-20 The English Standard Version — Afterward he appeared…

Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.  And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.  And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”  So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.  And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
Mark 16:14-20  The English Standard Version

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Luke 24:1-8 The New International Version — On the first day of the week…

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!  Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”  Then they remembered his words.
Luke 24:1-8  The New International Version

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Matthew 27:45-54 The English Standard Version — Now from the sixth hour…

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.”  And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.  But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”  And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.  And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.  The tombs also were opened.  And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.  When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
Matthew 27:45-54  The English Standard Version

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Luke 22:47-54 The New International Version — While he was still speaking…

While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them.  He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”  When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?”  And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.  But Jesus answered, “No more of this!”  And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.  Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs?  Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me.  But this is your hour- when darkness reigns.”  Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest.  Peter followed at a distance.
Luke 22:47-54  The New International Version

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Mark 14:22-25 The King James Version — And as they did eat…

And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.  And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.  And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.  Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
Mark 14:22-25  The King James Version

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Keeping Your Eyes Open, by Eric Elder…

Part 2 of “How to Keep Trusting God, Even in the Face of Significant Loss”

Last week I shared two stories and a conclusion with you about how God has been helping me to keep the hardest parts of life from overshadowing the best parts about it.  (If you missed the message, you can still read it here, as it may have been, based on the responses I’ve gotten, one of the most significant messages I’ve shared.)

This week, I’d like  to follow up on that message and share a few more stories to help you keep trusting God, even in the face of significant loss.  I know you may not have lost a spouse like I have, but you may be facing something just as challenging in your own life, whether it’s a divorce, a broken relationship, a wayward son or daughter, a job loss, a change in health, or the loss of a dream that meant the world to you.

In any case, I want to encourage you to keep your eyes open to what God is doing all around you.  Even though you may not see God doing what you expect Him to do in one particular area, if you can see God at work in other ways, it can help you to keep putting your trust in Him.

I believe this is what Jesus did for John the Baptist when John was in prison and facing the very real possibility of death.  Up to this point, John had thought that Jesus was the one who was going to save God’s people.  But something about being in prison seemed to have made John wonder if what he had previously thought was true.  John sent his followers to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3)  After all, didn’t Jesus come to “set the captives free” (Luke 4:18)?  And wasn’t John a captive, in need of freedom?

But Jesus sent a message back to John, saying,

“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me” (Matthew 11:4-6).

It’s as if Jesus was reminding John of all the things that God was doing all around him, and even if God didn’t do what John may have thought He should do, John could still trust Him to do what was right.  When Jesus said, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me,” it’s almost as if Jesus was saying, “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of what they think I should or should not be doing.”  Sometimes we’re so focused on one area of our lives that we miss what God is doing in other areas.

It turns out that John wasn’t set free the way others in the Bible were, like Daniel when he was rescued from the lions’ den (Daniel 6), or Peter when an angel led him out of jail (Acts 12), or Paul and Silas when an earthquake loosened their chains and caused the prison doors to fly open (Acts 16).  In John’s case, he only lived long enough to hear back from Jesus that God was indeed still on the job and working in the world.

I believe it was just what John needed to hear in order to face what he had to face: his own imminent death.

It may have seemed like John had lost his faith there at the end.  But coming to Jesus with his doubts didn’t mean he lost his faith.  It was an expression of his faith.  It showed that John still looked to Jesus for answers, even in the face of circumstances he couldn’t understand.  If this was a test of John’s faith, I believe he passed with flying colors, as Jesus said of him:

“I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist…” (Matthew 11:11a).

I don’t know if the trial that my wife Lana just went through was a test, or simply the result of living in a world that’s been subjected to sin and sickness and decay.  But if it was a test, I believe she passed with flying colors, keeping her faith in Christ to the end.  Now I’m praying that I’ll be able to pass with flying colors, too.

One of the ways I’m trying to do that is by doing what Jesus told John to do:  to keep his eyes open to the work that Jesus was still doing in the world and not to base his conclusions on what he thought Jesus should or should not be doing.

Let me share just a few brief stories of what I’ve seen God doing lately, some of which may seem trivial, but in the face of the loss that I’ve had, even the smallest glimpses of God are worth more than gold to me.

A few weeks ago I was helping my kids do some late-night craft projects:  tie-dying a dress with my daughter and making rubber squishy bugs with my son.  I was already worn out from the day, and going back and forth on these two projects was wearing me down further.  I wanted to help them, but I was definitely missing Lana and the help that she would have been in moments like these.

At one point, I went upstairs to take a break, and as I passed a mirror, I noticed the temporary reading glasses I was wearing, as I had lost my usual ones a few weeks earlier.  As I looked in the mirror I decided it was time to order a new pair, as I hadn’t been able to find my old pair.  On the way back down the stairs to the basement where my daughter was tie-dying her dress, I paused on the steps, reached my hand up to heaven, and said, “Lana, help me!”  (I know it’s God that helps us, but I still find myself talking to Lana in heaven, especially at times like this.)  Then I continued on down the stairs.

As I got down on my hands and knees on the cold cement floor of the basement to help with the tie-dying project, I happened to look to my left and there, hanging on some bottles of soap and shampoo under the basement sink, were my glasses that had been missing for weeks!  Had I not been doing these projects with the kids, down on my hands and knees on the cold cement floor of the basement, I never would have found them!  And had I not remembered the conversation with myself in the mirror upstairs just a few minutes earlier, and my quick call for help from heaven as I walked down the steps again, I wouldn’t have put my prayer and the answer together either.  My whole outlook on helping the kids for the rest of the night changed in that instant.  It was as if a little reward had been dropped out of heaven and was dangling on the bottles of soap in front of me.

That might not seem like a God-moment to you, and it may not have seemed like one to me, either, if this was the first time something like this had happened.  But just a few weeks earlier, when I was recovering from the flu and getting ready to start back into homeschooling our three youngest kids again for the first time since Lana died, I had reached up to heaven as well.  After gathering up literally dozens of books from around the house that the kids use for school, we were still missing two book.  Again, in an act of desperation more than anything else, I looked up to heaven and said, “Lana, help me!”  Within minutes we found the two missing books.  They had appeared practically out of thin air.

But more than that, after we found those two missing books, one of my sons wanted to take a break and do some kind of “outside project.”  Even though the temperature was literally below freezing outside, I said, “OK, let’s fix that broken pole on the trampoline.”  It wasn’t a very practical idea, as it was too cold to actually jump on the trampoline, but it was the first thing that came to mind that would be quick and easy enough to get us back inside before we froze, too.

So we went out into the freezing cold to start working on the trampoline pole and I happened to look up into the net above us.  There, hanging at the top of the net, were my daughter’s prescription glasses that had been missing since Lana’s funeral more than two months earlier!  It was as if they had been dropped down from heaven and got caught in the net for us to find!  How they had survived the cold and the wind and the snow for two months, I didn’t know.  But what I did know was that within minutes of calling out to heaven for help, I had found two missing schoolbooks AND a pair of missing glasses!  All the while trying to help my kids, which was something I needed to do and wanted to do, but was having trouble working up the strength to do.  But the moment I saw those glasses in the net, my whole perspective on the day changed.  I knew God was at work and I was able to find the strength to go on.

And just this past week, as the weather has started to get nicer here in Illinois, I was walking around the yard with a friend who’s spent years in the landscaping business, asking his advice about where and what kind of trees we could plant around the house.  This was a project that Lana and I had been wanting to do for some time.  To be honest, it was hard to even think about planting trees, as sometimes it feels like the dreams and plans I had with Lana died when she died.  But I have to remember that I didn’t die, and that God may still want me to keep some of those shared dreams and plans alive, too.

So there we were, walking around the yard and sharing ideas, when my daughter reached down and found a charm on the ground for a charm bracelet.  Then she found another a few feet away, and then a third a few feet from that.  They still had the tags on them, as we had bought them for her birthday party the month before, but we had lost them somewhere between the store and the house during a snowstorm that night.  Now here they were, out in the middle of the yard, hundreds of feet from the house, as we were trying to plan and continue the dream of planting more trees in the yard!

Again, it may seem trivial to you (and perhaps it makes you wonder why we keep losing so many things!)  But to me, it was as if God was saying, “Yes, this is exactly what I want you to be doing, walking around the yard and planning where to put trees for the future!  Keep moving forward on the dreams that you and Lana shared, and keep going on all that I have called you to do in your life!  You’ll be blessed as you do these things, as will others when you’re done doing them!”

It’s like Jesus keeps telling me, like He seemed to be telling John the Baptist, to keep my eyes open to the things that He’s doing in the world, and to keep on trusting Him, even in the face of all that I’ve lost.

I could share a dozen more stories from the past four months since Lana died where I’ve seen God at work in such small ways that it’s changed my outlook on everything else going on around me, but I’ll let these suffice to encourage you to keep your eyes open to the things God is doing in your life, and the lives of those around you.

Someday I hope to be like the grandfather who was out fishing with his grandson when at one point the grandson asked his grandfather if he had ever seen God.  The grandfather gazed out across the lake where they were sitting and answered, “The older I get, the more I see Him everywhere I look.”

Don’t be discouraged when you don’t see God at work in your life the way you think He should be working.  Don’t give up on Him because things don’t always go your way.  Don’t think for a minute that He doesn’t love you because you’ve lost something precious in your life.  As the Bible says,

“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?” (Romans 8:32).

As we head into Passion Week, this week before Easter when Jesus experienced some of the most intense pain and suffering that this world has to offer, remember that you’re not alone.  Jesus knows what it’s like to suffer and die.  He knows what it’s like to lose people who are close to you, like He did when He lost Lazarus and John the Baptist.  In the case of Lazarus, Jesus raised him back to life.  In the case of John the Baptist, Jesus spoke words of encouragement so he could face his death with faith.

And in all things, remember that God really does love you and has a unique calling and purpose for your life.  Keep your eyes open.  The more you do, the more you’ll see Him everywhere you look.

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Two Stories and a Conclusion, by Eric Elder…

Part 1 of “How to Keep Trusting God, Even in the Face of Significant Loss”

Dear Friends,

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers and kindnesses since my sweet wife Lana passed away on November 15th.  It’s been four months now and I wanted to share some thoughts with you on Lana, healing, and God’s will.  I apologize in advance for the length of this message, but if you’ve been discouraged or having trouble trusting God, especially in the face of significant loss, I hope you’ll read this message.  This message is really just two stories, with some follow-up comments to help you bring them together and apply them to your lives.

I haven’t shared these stories publicly until this week, as they are so personal and intimate that I’ve just been treasuring them in my own heart.  But I feel they’re important to share as a way of testifying to what God is doing in my life, and hopefully encouraging you at the same time.

The first story started on the day of Lana’s funeral, on November 20th, 2012.  Before she died, Lana had asked me to preach at her funeral if it ever came to that.  She said I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t think I could, but if I could, she wanted me to be the one to do it.  I did get up and preach, but not without seriously considering backing out several times, even a few times during the service just before I was about to speak.  I just wasn’t sure if I could do it.

One of the reasons I felt so unsure, apart from the sadness I felt in my heart from already missing her, was that I felt like I had lost so much in the days leading up to her death.  I had not only lost my best friend, my encourager, my partner in ministry, and apart from Jesus, the greatest source of joy and delight in my life, but we had also depleted all of the money in our bank account during those final months of her battle with cancer.  On the morning of her funeral, we had $26.45 in the bank.  I felt like I had lost everything.  (I hadn’t, but I felt like it.)

The morning of the funeral, I prayed that God would give me the strength to do what I wanted to do and needed to do.  I also prayed, more as a wish than anything else, that God would give the kids some kind of inheritance from Lana from the gifts that came in.  I knew that no amount of money would make up to them for losing their mother, but I wished I had something I could give them as an inheritance from her.  $26.45 wasn’t going to go very far among the six kids.

So I prayed that God would provide enough from the memorial gifts to pay for the funeral and still have some left over for the kids.  From past funerals, I knew that the gifts that come in are sometimes just enough to pay for the funeral and that’s it, so I wasn’t expecting much.  But then in my heart, I prayed, “God, if there’s any way to give the kids $1,000 each as an inheritance, that would be great.”  But then from deeper still in my heart, I thought that what I would really like for them is if I could put $5,000 into each of their bank accounts.  I quickly did the math and $5,000 times 6 kids would be $30,000.  There’s no way, I thought.  With $26.45 in the bank, I knew it was an outlandish request.  But I laid it out before God anyway.  Later that day, I got up to preach at Lana’s funeral.  (If you haven’t watched it yet, I’d encourage you to watch it online on Lana’s blog.  It was like no other service I’ve been to before, and I think you’ll find it inspiring and helpful more than anything else, so please watch it if you can!)

Starting that day and the days that followed, people did begin sending in memorial gifts for our family in honor of Lana.  Some gave $5, some gave $15, and some gave $20 or $100.  A few gave $1,000 and some even gave $5,000.  By December 4th, just two weeks and a day after the funeral, we had received just over $30,000 from over 200 different people, none of whom knew about my private prayer to God!

Now keep that date and that astounding answer to prayer in mind as I tell you the second story.  For it was on December 4th, just one year earlier, that we had first found the lump in Lana’s breast, our first indicator that anything was even wrong at all.

It was on that day that we had heard a missionary talk about their work in Kenya teaching women how to do self-exams for breast cancer.  Later that night we checked and discovered the lump.  We thought it was probably nothing serious, as is often the case.  But over the next few weeks, after a mammogram and then an ultrasound and finally a biopsy, the doctors confirmed that the lump really was cancerous.  At that time, the doctors had no reason to think that the cancer had already spread.  They felt that with treatment, they could remove it and all would be fine.  We were shocked but felt this was beatable.

A few days later, Lana was listening to a podcast on her phone of a sermon that gave her some encouragement, so when she was done listening, she handed me her phone so that I could listen to it, too.  But as she handed it to me, I felt God speak to me as loud and clear as any time I’d ever heard Him speak in my life.  Although He didn’t speak in audible words, the effect of what He was saying was, “This is a good message, Eric.  But it’s not My message for you in this situation.  This time I have something else in mind.”

As I listened to the message, I realized it was all about praying “bold prayers,” that we shouldn’t just pray for a “C” on a test, but for an “A.”  That we shouldn’t just pray that we would survive a difficult marriage, but that it would thrive.  That we shouldn’t just pray for a sickness to go away, but for a long and healthy and abundant life instead.  It was the kind of message I would normally believe and receive and be encouraged to pray with all my heart for every difficult situation I faced.

But if God really had spoken to me, then what was He saying in regards to Lana’s healing?  With a great sadness in my heart, I felt He was saying, “Eric, I know you have the faith to ask for the moon and get it.  But not this time.  This time I have something else in mind.”  God brought to my mind Psalm 23, reminding me that He would be with me, even in the face of death:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me…” (Psalm 23:4).

I felt this was a little extreme.  This cancer was beatable.  It didn’t have to end in death.  Then why was God telling me this?  But the next week I found out why.

Just a few days later, Lana went in for a few more tests.  She had started to have some other symptoms, some unexplainable bleeding and intense lower back pain.  The tests showed that it was worse than the doctors initially thought.  The cancer had already spread to her lungs and liver and spine.  In addition, the cancer was in a special category called “triple negative,” which meant that it wouldn’t respond to normal treatments that worked for other breast cancers.  There was no cure, the doctors said.  The best they could do was to treat the symptoms and try to keep her as comfortable as possible for as long as possible, but that the cancer would eventually take her life.  Statistically, the doctors said she had about one 1 to 3 years to live, depending on how she responded to treatment.  The majority of women with Stage 4, triple negative breast cancer don’t make it past 5 years.  And only one in a hundred ever make it to 10 years.

We were devastated.  But having heard God speak to me the week before, even before the doctors told us what was going on, somehow gave me great faith.  Not faith that Lana would be healed, although I believed God could still heal her in an instant, too, but faith that He would be with us through it all.  This was no news to God.  He had already revealed it to me before we, or even the doctors, had an inkling what was coming.

Knowing that God was with us gave me great peace in my heart.  But as comforting as this was, I still didn’t know how to walk forward in a practical way, given what I felt God was saying to me.  If God had told me that Lana was going to be healed, and to walk in faith and stand on the promise of the word He had spoken to my heart, I knew how to walk that out:  read and reread the Scriptures, fast and pray, gather others to fast and pray, and look for answers from any doctor or person of faith who could help us beat this disease.  But if I had really heard right, and God was really saying, “I know you have the faith to ask for the moon and get it, Eric, but not this time,” how could I walk that out?  How could I stand on something that I didn’t want to believe and didn’t want to be true?

Was I supposed to just give up on the possibility of healing?  Not bother praying at all for her?  Not ask others to join us in fasting and prayer?  Not go to doctors to try to get whatever help we could?  I felt that taking any of those paths would be utterly wrong.  Lana wanted to live and I wanted her to live!  And who knows?  Maybe I heard wrong.  Maybe the doctors were wrong.  And even if I had heard right, and the doctors were right, maybe God would still heal her miraculously!  God’s default position on healing is that we should be healed, as evidenced by the many ways He has created our bodies to heal themselves, to automatically seal up cuts, fight off infections, and repair damaged tissue.  God has demonstrated His desire for our healing throughout the Bible, performing miraculous healings from cover to cover.  God loves healing and wants us to be healed!  There’s no doubt that God is a healing God!

So I tried to remember what others did in the Bible when they received a word from God that they didn’t want to believe either.

I thought of Hezekiah, who was sick and dying when God spoke to him through the prophet Isaiah saying that Hezekiah’s sickness would end in death.  Hezekiah wept bitterly and pleaded with God for a different outcome.

“Remember, O LORD, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in Your eyes” (2 Kings 20:3a).

God heard Hezekiah’s prayers, healed him, and gave him an extra 15 years of life.

I thought of King David, who got a word from God through Nathan the prophet saying that the child born to David and Bathsheba would die.  But David didn’t give up and didn’t give in.  He fasted and prayed and wept before God every night saying:

“Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live,” (2 Samuel 12:22).

In David’s case, however, his child died after seven days, but not without David pleading with God for a different outcome.

Then I thought of Jesus, who, when faced with his own imminent death, knelt down and prayed so earnestly that His sweat fell like drops of blood:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

Jesus knew what His Father was asking of Him, yet still He pleaded for another way, that the cup He was about to drink would somehow be taken from Him.  Yet Jesus yielded to His Father’s will, even over His own.

From these three stories of Hezekiah and David and Jesus, I felt I was in good company that even if I had heard right from God, I could still plead with Him, in fasting and prayer and tears, pouring out my heart to Him for what Lana and I both wanted: that she would be healed completely and gloriously, and continue to live a long, healthy and abundant life.

So we fasted and prayed and called others to join us in fasting and prayer.  We talked to doctors and nurses and researchers and nutritionists, both locally and globally, to see if God had an answer through them.  We called the elders of our church, and several of our former churches, to anoint us with oil and pray for Lana’s healing.  We held prayer meetings in our living room and drove and flew to get prayer from some of the most faith-filled men and women of God we knew.

But as time marched on, the tests continued to come back blacker and bleaker.  Either what God had spoken to me at the beginning was true, or God was preparing the way for one of the most miraculous turnarounds of all time.  Either way, we felt good about the steps we were taking, about doing everything we possibly could to bring about her healing, and about trusting in God completely whatever the outcome.

As much as Lana and I, and many of you, wished that the outcome had been different, I can say that when it came time to say our final goodbyes, we had no regrets.  We had done everything we could think of doing to keep her alive, and God kept His promise to be with us through it all.

Let me tie these two stories together for you by sharing my journal entries from December 4th, 2012, the first written early in the morning as I was remembering the one-year anniversary of finding the lump that took Lana’s life, and the second written at midnight that night, after we received the checks in the mail that put us over $30,000 in memorial gifts in her honor.

“12/4/12 – Father, thank You for revealing to me and Lana the lump in her right breast one year ago today…  Lord, any thoughts about this being the one-year anniversary of the day You revealed this lump?  ‘I’ve given you a great gift, Eric.  A chance to see into the future, and to make your plans accordingly.   I have not hidden what is to happen from My prophets.  I warned Abraham about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah before it happened, just as I told him and Sarah they would have a child in a year, and just as I told you, Eric, that your friends would have a child in a year.  Although I didn’t tell you an exact date [regarding Lana], I did tell you what the outcome would be, both by showing you the lump, and by confirming that while you could pray for healing, this wasn’t My will in this case.  I wanted you to know, Eric, because I wanted you to have time to plan, prepare, and say goodbye properly.  And you have done marvelously.  Your kids, your friends, your family, are all living testaments to that fact.  I also gave you test after test, and doctor after doctor, to confirm this to you, for you wanted the truth, and you knew the truth would set you free.  They were hard truths to hear, and hard to watch you hear, but they were necessary to help you absorb and understand what I was saying.  I’ve given you a gift Eric, both in what I revealed, and in the fact that I do reveal My knowledge to My children.  Lana wanted to live and not die, and she was right to do so, for that’s My will [He wants all of us to live forever!].  But I wanted you to know so you could plan, prepare, and say goodbye properly.  I wanted you to care for her and love her and be with her to the fullest extent possible, so when she passed through the veil, you would have no regrets, nothing left undone, nothing more you could have done, but love her thoroughly.  I did this for you, yes, but also for Me, for I wanted you to be able to care for her on earth as I cared for her from heaven.  You were, and still are, My hands and feet and voice to many on earth.  You will be sad, no doubt, for to lose the one you love, when you have loved so deeply, is sad.  But you will rejoice as well, for you have been given a great and wonderful gift.'”

“12 midnight – Father, thank You for helping us reach the $30,000 mark that I had asked You for, to give $5,000 to each of the kids as an inheritance from Lana.  Lord, we only had $26.45 in our bank account the day of the funeral.  It was an outlandish prayer, and within a few weeks, You’ve brought the full amount I extravagantly asked for.  ‘Open your mouth wide, Eric, and I will fill it.’  Thank You, Lord!  I love You.  By the way, the sunset looked delicious tonight, like rainbow sherbet, and I wanted to lick it.  ‘Thank You.’  Thank You, Lord.”

Yes, life can be extremely hard.  But it also offers sunsets that look like rainbow sherbet!  The trick is to not let the hardest parts of life overshadow the best parts about it.  God is at work in both.  The Bible says:

“Friends, when life gets really difficult, don’t jump to the conclusion that God isn’t on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner… So if you find life difficult because you’re doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust Him. He knows what He’s doing, and He’ll keep on doing it” (1 Peter 4:12-13, 19, The Message).

Friends, God loves you and has a unique calling and purpose for your life, just as He had a unique calling and purpose for Lana’s life.  Don’t be discouraged when life doesn’t work out the way you think it should. God is still on the job.  Keep putting your trust in Him.  He knows what He’s doing, and He’ll keep on doing it.

Thanks for reading these two stories, and thanks again for your prayers and kindnesses you’ve shown to me and my family, especially during this past year.  It means so much, and is yet one more reminder of all that’s good in life.  May God bless you and keep you as you keep putting your trust in Him!

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Jerry Bridges — From our limited vantage point…

From our limited vantage point, our lives are marked by an endless series of contingencies.  We frequently find ourselves, instead of acting as we planned, reacting to an unexpected turn of events.  We make plans but are often forced to change those plans.  But there are no contingencies with God.  Our unexpected, forced change of plans is a part of His plan.  God is never surprised; never caught off guard; never frustrated by unexpected developments.  God does as He pleases and that which pleases Him is always for His glory and our good.
Jerry Bridges

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Isaiah 58:7-9 The New Living Translation — “Share your food with the hungry…

“Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.  Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.  Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal.  Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind.  Then when you call, the LORD will answer.  ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.”
Isaiah 58:7-9  The New Living Translation

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Growing Through Your Fears, by LeRoy Redding…

Growing Through Your Fears

By LeRoy Redding

Matthew 14:26-33

 

I’ve come to believe that procrastination and fear are married emotions. A lot of fear is actually hidden.  You can hide fear in procrastination. It may look something like this: “I don’t really want to talk to this person, confront this person, so I’ll put it off. If I don’t talk to then about it maybe they’ll forget or the problem will just sort of disappear.”  So we put it off to deal with later…maybe.

If you’re like me, procrastination leads to fear.  You procrastinate for a long time and then all of a sudden when something is due you kind of get fearful that you’re going to get in trouble. Remember junior high or high school the day the science project was due? “Oh, no! It’s due today! I’ve had nine months to work on it and I did nothing.”  Some of you know what I’m talking about, right?

Procrastination and fear grips everybody to some degree or another. Everyone has fears. One author wrote this about fear: “All of us are born with this set of instinctive fears. The fear of falling. The fear of the dark. The fear of lobsters. The fear of falling on lobsters in the dark. And the fear of the words:  Some Assembly Required.”

We’re all afraid of something…of failure, of loss, of rejection, of the future. We all have them. We’re afraid of public speaking (#1 fear of most people).  Or we’re afraid of what people will say about us.

We all have fears. You have fears. I have fears.  You know what? God is not surprised by our fears.  The #1 instruction from God to humanity is: “Fear not!”  If you scour the Bible, that is the number one message 366 times it says it in the Bible: “Fear not!” One for every day + leap year! Isn’t that great? I would have thought it would have been something like: “Love one another.” But instead, it’s “Fear not!” God was very thoughtful there, wasn’t He? He wants us to get it.  God wants His people to not live in fear.  I love the challenge God gives to Joshua in Joshua 1:9 (NLT):  “I command you be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

It’s easy for us to read or hear “Do not be afraid or discouraged” but it’s tough to live out, isn’t it?  That’s what I want to talk about today –
…the fears that keep us from living life to its fullest.
…the fears that keep us from being fully alive.
…the fears that keep us from being the person God created us to be.

If we don’t deal with some of these fears, what happens?
They turn into phobias.

Did you know there’s a website called “phobialist.com”?  Turns out this website lists about 600 phobias. I had heard of some – acrophobia (the fear of spiders), claustrophobia (the fear of enclosed or small places). Did you know there is actually a phobia, phobia? It’s a fear of phobias!

There’s actually a fear of sermons – Homilophobia!

On this website this is what it said, “Please don’t ask me about curing phobias because I know nothing about them. My interest is in the names only.”

My interest is very different this morning  My interest is in helping those of us here today grow spiritually through our fears and because of our fears. I’ve identified a couple action steps I’ve found from a passage in the Bible that I want us to take a look at today…

Matthew 14:26-33 (Turn there please)

It’s really a fear passage. Jesus puts His disciples on a boat.  They had just fed thousands of people with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread. Jesus wanted to withdraw and be by Himself. He puts them on the boat.  Let’s pick it up at v. 22… [Read Matthew 14:22-33]
How do we grow spiritually as a result of our fears?  I want to talk about how you grow closer to God. How do you have a deeper relationship with the God of the universe?  I believe that one way to grow closer to God is to actually  “Grow Through our Fears.”

But, how do we do it? How DO we grow through our fears?

1. ADMIT YOUR FEARS (v. 26)

This is very basic. You have to admit your fears. I put an “s” there – it’s plural. Fears. Admitting fears is tough, isn’t it?  Any other men in here who would like to give an “amen” to that? A lot of us guys our natural response is not to say, “I’m afraid!” Our natural response is to lie. “Afraid? No, she is, but I’m not. I’m ok with that.” We want to conquer our fears, but when you admit it that’s where it all begins.

The disciples did this. It says in verse 26: When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear.  Before we go any further let me ask you: What are you afraid of?  What are your fears?  What are the fears that are holding you back from living life the way God intended for it to be lived?  What are the fears that you have keeping you from being fully alive? What are your fears?  What are your fears about what God might be doing in your life and the life of this church?

 

What are your fears? What’s holding you back from going to deeper more intimate places in your relationship with God? What is that fear? Is it a fear about joining the church? You don’t want to belong to something. Maybe it’s a fear of getting involved in serving somewhere, getting involved in a ministry. Maybe your fear is about sharing with a friend or family member what God has done in your life. Is it a fear of rejection? Is it a fear of not being accepted? Maybe you fear that you might be fully known.  What are those fears?  Take some time to allow God to reveal them to you right now… Whatever they are when you admit them there is freedom in that. Did you hear me? There is freedom when you admit your fears!

 

So…how do we grow through our fears? We begin by admitting our fears..

The second thing you do is:

2. TAKE THE RISK (v. 29)

This is the classic step. Face your fears. But just like admitting you’re afraid isn’t natural, risk taking isn’t natural either. This just doesn’t come naturally to us, does it? Most of us in here didn’t have moms that when we were going away to school as a little kid say, “Have a risky day! I want you to embrace danger today, son! When you cross the street just look one way.” No! What do they say? “Be careful! It’s a dangerous world out there.”

Risk taking does not come naturally.  But spiritual growth involves risk.  And risk goes hand in hand with fear. Look at verse 29:  Matthew 14:29
29 And He said, “Come!” And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  That was a big step. Can you imagine that? To get out of the boat and walk on water – do something you’ve never done before? That was a risky step!  But what did it lead to? It led to intimacy with the Jesus!

With Peter it wasn’t just any old risk. It was Jesus calling.  If you do something risky just to be risky that’s called dumb!  But if you do something that feels risky to you but you know that God is a part of it that’s called faith!

As I look back at my life there have been times when I’ve said, “God, I’m going to be obedient and I’m going to trust You and I’m going to get out of the boat. I don’t want to and I’m scared. But I’m going to go because You’re calling me and I believe that’s what You want me to do.”  And as I step back and as I look at the bumps in my spiritual journey, the times when I’ve gone to deeper, richer, more intimate places with God have been the times when I’ve had to take a risk. It doesn’t mean that the risk has always turned out the way I thought it would, though.

This may disappoint some of you when I tell you this, but my spiritual journey is not a straight line towards growth.  It’s not this steady walk up hill to a rose garden. It’s up and down. More of a roller coaster (and I don’t like roller coasters!) As I step back and look over the years that I’ve known Jesus and have walked with Him, the times when it’s got stagnant, when it’s got flat, when my spiritual journey has gotten stale what sent it to the next level is times of risk.  You’ve got to take a risk. You’ve got to get out of the boat!!!

A lot of times we look at people who do this and think they’re courageous. I wish I could stand before you and say, I’m a jumper! When Jesus says come, then I’m out on the water!  But that’s not me. I wish I could say I’m a jumper, a risk taker. “LeRoy, the risk taker!” Not! I don’t naturally take risks.  I like to play it safe. I am not naturally a courageous person. I look at other people who have courage and I hold that up as a character quality. And so do you, right?

But courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is doing the right thing even when you’re afraid.  Courage is rejecting comfort & doing the very thing that you fear. And the problem gets worse with lack of action, because:

Lack of action adds fuel to the fear.

If you’re not taking a risk – and I suspect that there’s a lot of fear in this room – when you don’t take a risk with your fear what happens is…It just gets bigger!!!

All of a sudden that mountain seems so much harder to climb because you haven’t done anything with your fear.

Have you ever had a fear and you begin to think about it and you create the worst case scenarios of what could happen?  There’s a technical term for that – catastrophizing!  You create these catastrophes that never actually happen.

What is the risk that you’ve got to take? Admit it. “I’m scared.” And invite God to be a part of it. “God, I have a fear of the unknown.” Take the risk. Take the risk. Get out of the boat!!!

Some of you need to hear that message today. Today’s the day God is saying to you, “Get out of the boat. Don’t be safe in the boat. Life isn’t meant to be lived safe. Get out. Take a risk.” Every time I’ve ever heard this passage in Matthew 14 taught about Jesus inviting Peter to walk on the water, I’ve heard it taught like this: Most people say that Peter is a failure because when he got out of the boat he had his eyes on Jesus and when he took his eyes off Jesus fear entered and he sank. “Don’t take your eyes off Jesus!” That’s always the way we usually hear it preached, right?

But, you know what? I’m thinking Peter was not a failure here. Peter was the success. What about the guys that never got out of the boat? In my mind they are the failures.  At least Peter got out of the boat. At least he took a risk.  So, what do you do when you get out of the boat and take a risk?

 

Third, you…

3. EXPECT THE FEAR TO RETURN (v. 30)

I’d love to have kept this point out. I’d love to have just said, “Take a risk. Go for it!”  But the reality is the fear is going to return.  It did with Peter. He was afraid. Jesus says “Come!” So what does Peter do? He pops out of the boat and all of a sudden, bam!  Fear returns.  Look at verse 30:  Matthew 14:30 (NASB)  But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Fear is going to return.

You step out on faith and decide to help teach a Sunday School class. So you get the curriculum, you go to the class. And here you are in front of these 4 year olds and you begin thinking, “I’m not good enough. I don’t know the Bible enough. What if I drop the flannel graph?”

Fear is going to return. You can count on it.

Some of you want to have some courage and you want to invite a friend to coffee at Starbuck’s. You’re finally going to tell them about the change that God has done in your life.  You’re all excited. You’re ready to do it. You’re ready to share your story. You see your friend walking through the parking lot. And that fear returns and you just want to change the subject.  The fear is going to return.

The fear of rejection. The fear of failure will loom around.  Let’s say you fail. Not perceived failure but actual failure.  You take a risk and you fail. You tried working with 4-year-olds but every time they cried, you cried.

What do you do when you fail?

What’s the 4th step in growing through your fear? You…

4. EMBRACE THE PRESENCE OF GOD (v. 28, 31)

If you begin to sink like Peter did here’s the good news of the gospel. When you sink God doesn’t. Jesus proves this.  Look at verse 31… Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Notice the word “immediately.” Immediately! Instantly! Right then…you can embrace the presence of God when you’ve failed. when you fail God doesn’t!  Say this with me, “When I fail, God doesn’t!”  Let’s say it again together… What I know about God’s character through His word and through my own experience is this: God’s presence is available 24/7.  God doesn’t have a part-time role in the life of a believer.  But if you’re anything like me, you might have part-time memory. We have part-time memories when we focus on our fears and we really forget about God’s presence.

As I think about my fears, I realize that one of the battles that looms within me is the fear of rejection. It’s very real. It’s hard to admit, but it’s true. I’ve got fears that are real just like you. Here’s what I’ve found: When I focus on my fear, when I give it a lot of power by thinking about it all the time, I find I lose sight of the presence of God. I find I have a tough time seeing God.

Peter had a tough time, too. But whether it was dark or foggy out there on the water, it doesn’t really matter.  Look at what Peter says in verse 28:  Peter said to Him, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” Maybe today in the midst of your fear and the fog that surrounds you, when you’re fearful, it’s tough to see God.

It’s tough to see God when you’re fearful.

But I don’t want you to leave here today without hearing His promise. God’s promise is “I will never leave you.”  God’s promise is this:  “There’s nothing that you and I can’t do that we can’t do together. There’s nothing you and I can’t handle together.”

What I’ve learned in working with people is that when people get their arms around that truth, their lives are changed.  Radically changed.

One of the most powerful statements of this truth is made by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:13…

In Philippians 4:13 he says “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”  Some of you have been around the church and Christianity along time and you’ve heard this many, many times, right? You might have a bumper sticker; you might have it underlined in your Bible. You might even have a little needlepoint thing in our house –  “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”  We’ve got a magnet on our refrigerator that has this verse on it.

The problem with this is a lot of us in here we’ve made this kind of a pithy, superficial platitude. What I want to do is give you the context in which he wrote this. As a matter of fact, I want you to transfer yourself into his context. Imagine this is you: You’ve lost your job. You’re isolated from your friends. You’re living in a strange country where you don’t know people. Jealous enemies have trashed your reputation. You’ve been arrested on false charges. You’ve been physically beaten, put in jail and you may be put to death tomorrow. What’s going on in your mind, in your heart? Anybody have fear? I would. And yet what does Paul write? “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”

Don’t you wonder: How can he write this – I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. How can he do this? He has experienced the presence of God. And he lives his life in the presence of God. This is the same Paul who wrote earlier in this letter to the Philippians in… Philippians 1:21:  “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  This is someone who is living with no fear. “No fear living.”  Try to imagine what your day might be like with that kind of attitude. Imagine if we really practiced the presence of God in our lives. Try to unfold your day with me for a second. You wake up in the morning and you face things – good things and you face bad things. All day long you’re breathing in and out – I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.  That’s practicing the presence of God! That’s God’s will for us! Slowly what happens over time God takes your fear and He enhances your faith.

What does your prayer look like?  Maybe your prayer is something like this:

“God, I’ve been checking You out from a distance. I know I need You to invade my life and be the Lord of my life but I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I do I’m going to miss out on something. But I’m going to trust Your presence.”

The Bible says that when you and I go to God’s presence He meets us there. When we recognize His presence He’s there. Ephesians 3:12 says “Because of Christ and our faith in Him [not our fear in Him but our faith in Him] we can now come fearlessly into God’s presence assured of His glad welcome.”

And when you and I do come into His presence and our fear diminishes and our faith increases then we see a 5th step to growing through our fears when we…

5. GIVE THE PRAISE TO GOD (vv. 32-33)

A lot of times when we conquer a fear we give the praise to a self-help book or a seminar or someone else. Those may be very wonderful and helpful things but what did the disciples do?

The disciples gave the praise to God. Look at verse 33…And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!”  This whole fear event in Matthew 14 ends with worship!  It started with fear. It ends with worship. Isn’t that beautiful? When you worship, you don’t have time to worry!  When you worship, you focus on God!  When you worship, you don’t focus on your fears!

My challenge to all of us, myself included, is this:

Are we living a life of worship?  Are we building worship into our lives? Every day?  Every moment?

What I’m talking about is celebrating God’s presence in our lives!  Have you ever been alone and you’re scared and by yourself then all of a sudden a friend comes over and you see them and say, “Thank you that you’re here.” You know that feeling –  “Thank you Lord, I’m not alone.” That’s all I’m suggesting…  “Oh, thank You God that You’re here.”  And you focus on Him. You give praise to Him.  It starts with fear. It ends with worship.  Psalms 34:1-4 “I will boast only in the Lord. Let all who are discouraged take heart. Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness. Let us exalt His name together. I prayed to the Lord and He answered me freeing me from all my fears.”

So, let’s recap here. What do we do with our fears?  Fears that are very real, very personalize.  What do we do with them? We admit them. We identify them.

But our fears must move us to more faith!  And having more faith we draw closer to God. And drawing closer to God we worship Him. And worshipping Him we focus on Him and not on our fears.  It’s really a beautiful cycle, isn’t it?

Now, I’m not under any false assumption that after hearing a little  30-minute message that you’re walking out of here going,  “I’m going to conquer my fears. Now I have all the tools and gifts. Thank you, LeRoy. Now I can do it.”  I realize that many of our fears are a lot bigger than what I can offer you. But… I can offer you God’s Word.  I can offer you some help, some principles, some steps and a reminder that God is with you and wants to be with you in the midst of your fears to change you through your fears.  I believe with all my heart that the Bible teaches that overcoming fear is a joint venture. That you do your role and He does His role. If you’re serious about overcoming fear and you’re serious about being liberated from the choke hold that fear has on your life take a step, even just a little tiny baby step.  Say, “Where do I need to start?” And then start there.

Today, we have the privilege of being in a relationship with the Almighty God of the Universe! Imagine!  Listen to what God has to say to us in Isaiah 43:1: “Do not be afraid for I have ransomed you. I have saved you. I have called you by name. You are Mine.”  It’s my prayer that for some of you today that you would hear those words, the words of Jesus saying, “Come to Me. It’s time. Come. You’ve been under the tyranny of fear way too long!  It’s time. It’s time for you to rise up and take the help God makes available to you. It’s time. It’s time to start doing what you’ve longed to do but you haven’t had the courage to do. It’s time to face the things that you’ve always wanted to face but you didn’t know how. It’s time.”

For some of you, the words you need to say to Christ go something like this:  “I don’t want to stand on the sideline any more. I want to get in the game. Lord, I admit I am a sinner. Jesus Christ, come into my life. I trust in you and you alone. Thank you for dying on the cross in my place, for my sins. Forgive me of my sins. Take over my life. Guide me. I want to be a member of Your family.”

I encourage you. I plead with you.  Take that step and become a member of God’s family!

Now, to those of us already in God’s family, sad to say, what many of us do is that we fear too much because we trust God too little.

Listen to me here: Within every great fear is a great opportunity for God to do something in your life and to enhance your faith.  I want to leave you with this challenge:  Give God your fears!  Allow God to work in your life! Allow God to help you grow through your fears!

Let’s pray…
As your eyes are closed I want you to hear these words from Psalm 27:
“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?”

Is He your Lord? Is He your Savior? Is He your light? Is He your salvation? Then who in the world to you have to fear? Is the Lord the stronghold of your life? Is He your rock? If so, who or what do you have to be afraid of?

If you’ve identified some fears this morning, let me encourage you to admit those fears to the Lord right now. Give them to Him.  Open yourself open to God and let Him take full control of your life.  Let this be the day you begin the step of growing through your fears.

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Ruth: A Loyal Love Story By Brian Bill…

Ruth: A Loyal Love Story   By Brian Bill   Ruth 1:1-4:22

I like looking at old scrapbooks. For most of us, our family picture albums are stored away in boxes somewhere. Whenever I pick up one of my mom’s old albums, the ancient black and white pictures start to fall out, and I get to relive the memories of my youth all over again. Pictures help us to keep the story alive.   We’ve pulled out a couple scrapbooks the past two weeks in order to keep God’s story of redemption alive in our own lives. By flipping through the pages of some of the “lifestyles of the not-so-famous” characters of the Old Testament, we’ve been reminded of their stories and challenged by their faith. We looked at Hannah as a model for motherhood and last week we learned more about trust from the life of Gideon. This morning we’re going to listen to a loyal love story from the Book of Ruth.    Many people have said that the Book of Ruth is the most beautiful short story ever written. It’s an account of anxiety, fear, love, and commitment that inflames the imagination and soothes the soul. It begins with despair and ends with delight.     When Benjamin Franklin was the Ambassador to France, he occasionally attended the Infidels Club — a group that spent most of its time searching for and reading literary masterpieces. On one occasion Franklin read the book of Ruth to the club, but changed the names in it so it would not be recognized as a book of the Bible. When he finished, the listeners were unanimous in their praise. They said it was one of the most beautiful short stories that they had ever heard, and demanded that he tell them where he had run across such a remarkable work of art. He loved telling them that it came from the Bible!    And, because this love story is in the Bible, it’s more than just a romance novel. Romans 15:4 says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Paul is referring here to the Old Testament, including the book of Ruth. That means we’ll be taught, we’ll be more able to endure tough times, and we’ll be encouraged as we learn together. In the process, we’ll grow in hope.    While the Book of Ruth is a super story of love and loyalty, we’re separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years from its setting. In my research this week, I went on the Internet and found the website for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in New York City. I wanted to find out more about how the Book of Ruth is thought of in Jewish circles, since the Old Testament contains their sacred Scriptures.      I called them and was connected to Rabbi Pamela Wax, the assistant director of adult Jewish education. She told me that the Book of Ruth is very significant to Jewish people. In fact, about a week ago, they celebrated the festival of “Shavuot,” in which the entire book is sung or read out loud. She asked if I wanted it sung and I said sure. She then proceeded to sing Ruth 1:1 to me over the phone. I wish I could have recorded it because it was so beautiful. She also told me that on the Thursday night of the festival, many people stay up all night to study the Book of Ruth. It’s also customary to eat dairy foods throughout the festival because the Torah is likened to the sweetness of milk and honey. Rest assured, we’re not going to be here all day and night studying Ruth, I’m certainly not going to sing to you, and we’re not going to serve cheese and milk shakes (though my relatives from the “Dairy State” would love that).    There is both Old Testament and New Testament precedent for the reading of the Bible out loud before an assembly of worshipers. In Joshua 8:34-35, Joshua read all the words of the Law to the nation of Israel. In Nehemiah 8:3, “Ezra read aloud from daybreak until noon…and all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.” In 8:8, we learn that a group of Levites not only read from the Law, they “made it clear and gave the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.”    Most of the New Testament letters were to be read in their entirety to the young churches. Paul challenged the Thessalonians, “I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the churches.” And, in 1 Timothy 4:13, Paul tells Timothy to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and teaching.” I want to follow that model this morning, but I’m going to reverse the order. I’m going to begin with the teaching as we discuss some important background information. Then we’ll listen to the reading of God’s Word and finally conclude with some preaching as we look for ways to apply these loyal love lessons to our own lives.    Background Information If you have your Bibles, please open them to the Book of Ruth. This short book of just four chapters is found between Judges and 1 Samuel.      A lot of key information is found in Judges 1:1-5 (read).    1. Timing. The events take place during the time when the judges ruled in Israel. As we’ve already pointed out, this was a period in which God’s people would move from disobedience to defeat to deliverance. Because everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes, sin was rampant and God’s people had hardened hearts. Several commentators suggest that the storyline in Ruth took place during the time when Gideon served as one of the judges.     2. Setting. We read in verse 1 that because there was a bad famine in Bethlehem, a man took his wife and two sons to live in the country of Moab. The famine was a consequence of the deliberate disobedience of God’s people according to Deuteronomy 11:16-17: “Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the LORD’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.” When we left Gideon last week, the nation had been enticed to turn away and worship false gods.     3. Journey to Moab. Moab was a land of rich soil and adequate rainfall so this man traveled to a place where his crops wouldn’t fail. This family would have traveled north to Jerusalem and then crossed the Jordan River at the fords by Jericho. Depending on where they settled, the trip would have been about one hundred miles and would have taken about a week.     4. Relations with Moab. It’s important to know that Moab was an eternal enemy of Israel. It’s not going too far to say it’s a bit like Israel and the PLO today. In Numbers 25, we read that the Moabites led Israel into sexual immorality and pagan worship. Deuteronomy 23:3-6 lays out some pretty strong words: “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt…Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live.” This man is trying to flee the judgment of God on Israel and is disobeying doubly by going to live among the Moabites.     5. Characters in the story. The Israelite man’s name was Elimelech and his wife’s name was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. These two sons married Moabite women, one who was named Orpah, and the other Ruth. When we come to chapter two, we’re introduced to a man named Boaz, who was a relative of Elimelech.     6. Situation. During their stay in Moab, Naomi’s husband Elimelech died and then about ten years later, both Mahlon and Kilion also die. Naomi, Orpah and Ruth are now widows. Widows in the ancient world had no social status and no economic means to survive. This would especially be true for Naomi, since she was an Israelite living in a foreign country. There was no Social Security system and she had no male protector or provider. In such a situation, widows back then would equate to the homeless in our society today.     8. Gleaning. God has always made provision for the poor and destitute. Leviticus19:9-10: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.” This helps explain what Ruth was doing in chapter 2 and it also reveals a little about the character of Boaz as a man who followed the Law and cared for the poor.     9. Kinsman redeemer. Since God had assigned each family of each tribe a section of land, this land was extremely important (and still is) to Israel. In order to make sure it stayed in the family, the kinsman redeemer law was instituted. If a man died and left a widow and no sons, his nearest relative would be given the opportunity to buy his land and marry his widow so that she could have sons to carry on the deceased’s name. This relative would be obligated, at his own expense, to buy back the property and give it back to the relative who had sold it. If the nearest relative refused, then the next closest kin would take on the role of the redeemer. There was a catch, however. The kinsman-redeemer couldn’t make the decision to redeem on his own. He had to be asked by the widow to buy back her husband’s land. That helps to explain what takes place in chapter 3.     10. Corner of covering. Chapter 3 will make you hold your breath and scratch your head. Ruth puts on perfume and dresses in her finest clothes and goes to the threshing floor to scope out sweaty Boaz. When Boaz falls asleep, Ruth takes the covers off his feet and lies down next to him! When Boaz turns over in the middle of the night, he discovers this woman lying at his feet and wants to know who she is. She identifies herself and then says in verse 9: “Spread the corner of your covering over me, for you are my family redeemer.” This same word is translated “wings” in 2:12, when Boaz says to Naomi, “May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully.” Ruth is asking Boaz to shelter her under his wing and to redeem her. In short, she is making a marriage proposal to him!     11. Town Gate. In Chapter 4, Boaz goes to the city gates and sits down to conduct business. The gate of a city was like a courthouse, where transactions took place, and where cases were heard. This was also the place where you most likely to run into someone, kind of like Wal-Mart.     12. Sandals. Sandals were the ordinary footwear of the time, but were also symbolic in the relationship between a widow and her legal guardian. The giving of a sandal was like a signed contract back then, especially in cases where land was in dispute. This originated because someone would walk off a field in their sandals in order to measure it.     Now, with that as background, let’s listen to this loyal love story. As you listen, in light of 2 Timothy 3:16, allow the Holy Spirit to use His living Word to “teach, rebuke, correct, and train you in righteousness so that we can be equipped for every good work.” I’ll be reading from the New Living Translation.    Reading of Ruth (After reading 1:1-18, a section from Francine Rivers’ book called, “Unshaken” was read as a dramatic presentation (pages 26-27)).    Love Lessons I want to conclude this morning by drawing three lessons, or applications, from this loyal love story.     1. Surrender to God’s Sovereignty. One of the overriding themes of the Book of Ruth is the providential sovereignty of God. He is seen everywhere, weaving His purposes through events and circumstances. He uses a famine to bring a Jewish man and his family to Moab, where one of his sons marries a Moabite woman. Through the unexpected widowhood of both Naomi and Ruth, they end up in the Promised Land because they hear that the famine has ended. Naomi teaches Ruth about the things of God and Ruth make a life-changing commitment.     Then, in Ruth 2:3, we read that Ruth “just happened” to find herself in a field that belonged to Boaz. This was no coincidence! God orchestrated the events in order to accomplish His purposes. God’s invisible hand steered her to that particular field on that particular day. Ruth had gone through some terrible things, but every difficulty, question, uncertainty, and broken heart became God’s way of doing something better than could have happened otherwise. We find the beginning of God’s grace when we come to the end of ourselves.     Friend, even when you are completely unaware of what is happening, or even why something is happening, God is guiding your decisions and actions. He is working everything together for your good and His ultimate glory. Our responsibility is to surrender to His sovereignty. The Heidelberg Catechism puts it this way: “I trust Him so much that I do not doubt He will provide whatever I need for body and soul and He will turn to my good whatever adversity He sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because He is almighty God; He desires to do this because He is a faithful Father.”     Have you surrendered yourself to His sovereignty? Do you trust His purposes for your life, even when things look bleak? Have you discovered the glories of “God’s happenings” in your life? On this Memorial Day Weekend, when we remember what the men and women in our armed forces suffered for us, this truth is brought into focus ¬ God has brought good out of what our soldiers have suffered for our country. He has a way of working everything out.      The only survivor of a shipwreck washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He cried out to God to save him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but he only got depressed. He eventually was able to build a small hut and put his only possessions in it. But one day, after hunting for some food, he came back to his hut to find that it had gone up in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. He was devastated. Early the next day a ship drew near the island and rescued him. He couldn’t believe it. When he came on board he said to the crew, “How did you know I was here?” To which they replied, “We saw your smoke signal.”     2. Cultivate your character. Think about Naomi for a moment. She goes to Moab with her husband and sons, leaving her friends and her country behind. We don’t really know from the book whether she wanted to go or not, but we do know that she cultivated her character while she was there. She continued to walk with God, even when her two sons married Moabites. She worshiped the true God when the entire culture bowed to Baal. She made the most of her situation by teaching Ruth about God. She had the courage to return to her land and then boldly told Ruth to make a marriage proposal to Boaz. She launched her matchmaking plan but she also knew how to be patient and wait on the Lord as she said in 3:18, “Be patient, my daughter, until we see what happens.” She submitted to God’s sovereignty.    Ruth reveals a woman who was extremely loyal. She stayed with her mother-in-law when she didn’t have to. She put her faith in God through Naomi’s example and then helped Naomi trust God when she felt like giving up. She was extremely industrious, working hard to gather grain. She was respectful and yet bold, willing to put some risk into her faith.     Boaz was a man of integrity and was greatly respected by everyone. He was known for his kindness and as a boss knew how to treat his employees. He followed the law by making sure the poor were cared for. He was a man of purity, even when he had the opportunity to be otherwise. He urged a relative to do what was right even though he wanted Ruth all along.    In the end, each of them was rewarded for cultivating their character. Naomi is now cared for, and is found holding her grandson at the end of the story. Ruth gets married and has a son who will eventually appear in King David’s photo album and is in the family tree of the Messiah. Boaz gets married and has the joy of passing along his faith to future generations.    Are you cultivating your character? Don’t sell out, don’t cave in, and don’t bail on God.     3. Receive the Redeemer. Just as Ruth saw reality in Naomi’s religion, and wanted it for herself, some of you are ready to receive the redeemer into your life. Ruth and Orpah help us see the options. They both had the opportunity to turn their backs on what they were worshiping and follow the true God. Orpah had started out to follow Naomi but then bailed. Many people do that today. They start out but never make a commitment to Christ. You might see them in church for a couple times but then they vanish. God doesn’t want a half-hearted commitment. He’s looking for people today who will say, “Your God will be my God.” Are you ready to do that?    We all need a redeemer. The Bible says that we need someone to rescue us from the slippery slope of sin. You might think that you can’t possibly be forgiven for what you’ve done. That’s not true. God can forgive anyone. He forgave a Moabite and He can give you a fresh start as well. And, just as Ruth needed to ask for redemption, so too, you need to ask Jesus to redeem you. Are you ready to curl up at the feet of Jesus and ask Him to save you?    According to the rabbi I talked to this week, one of the reasons modern-day Jews love the Book of Ruth so much is that it pictures the marriage relationship that God has with His people. He is romancing you right now. He longs to have a relationship with you, but you need to make the proposal. He’s waiting for you to ask Him. Another reason why Ruth is revered is because she is the first “believer by choice” in the Bible. She put her faith in the God of Abraham voluntarily and she did so with a full-fledged commitment.    In the Old Testament, a redeemer must be related by blood, he must be able to redeem, and he must be willing. Jesus took on flesh and blood so that He could relate to us. He is able to redeem because He has paid the price for our redemption and He is more than willing. Are you?    The Book of Ruth concludes with a genealogy. Did you know there are 41 separate genealogies from Genesis to Revelation? Have you ever stopped to wonder why? These family trees are really “faith albums” of God’s promises to His people. When God made the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 that all families would be blessed through him, we see that God has grafted in individuals like Rahab and Ruth in order to bring David into the world. Then, when we come to Matthew 1, we see that the lineage of Boaz and Ruth from Bethlehem ended up in David’s greater Son, born of a virgin in a stable in Bethlehem.    Friend, just as God plucked Ruth out of a rough world and adopted her into the family faith tree, maybe you will be the first family in your line to follow Jesus. Your spiritual scrapbook may be brand new. Or, maybe you’re continuing a long-established family tree of faithfulness. Whatever the case, you carry on a heritage that cannot afford to be squandered.  Are you ready to receive the redeemer? Do so right now.

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Watchman-Examiner —

Vital Christian experience comes from knowing Jesus as the living Saviour.  Two irreligious young men were discussing the resurrection, telling each other why it was impossible for them to accept the doctrine.  Then a deacon of a near-by church walked by, and in a joking way one of the young fellows called to him, “Say, Deacon, tell us why you believe that Jesus rose again.”  “Well,” he answered, “one reason is that I was talking with Him for half an hour this very morning.”  We may all experience proof of the resurrection of Christ in the acknowledging of His living presence in our lives.  No one who knows Jesus personally questions the resurrection.
Watchman-Examiner

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Junior King’s Business — A little girl whose baby brother had just died…

A little girl whose baby brother had just died asked her mother where baby had gone.  “To be with Jesus,” replied the mother.  A few days later, talking to a friend, the mother said, “I am so grieved to have lost my baby.”  The little girl heard her, and, remembering what her mother had told her, looked up into her face and asked, “Mother, is a thing lost when you know where it is?”  “No, of course not.”  “Well, then, how can baby be lost when he has gone to be with Jesus?”  Her mother never forgot this.  It was the truth.
Junior King’s Business

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Ephesians 1:7-10 The New International Version — In him we have redemption…

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment- to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
Ephesians 1:7-10  The New International Version

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This Week’s Sermon — It’s Hard to be Humble…

It’s Hard to be Humble   By Robert Leroe  Psalm 131:1-8

Introduction…some Country/Western theology I want to share a story I heard last week in our adult Sunday School class. We were discussing humility and I mentioned the song “It’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way.” A member of the class related how the year after Mac Davis had a hit with that song, he was a presenter at a Country Music Awards show…and he hadn’t been nominated for anything. He confessed, “It’s not so hard to be humble after all!” The Bible is clear that the proud will be humbled.     Charles Spurgeon calls Psalm 131 one of the shortest psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn. He says it’s “a short ladder yet one that rises to a great height.” When we face trials, we know that divine help is available, but we’re prone to tell God ‘not to bother’, that we’ll take care of our problems on our own.     A. Humility (verse one) The psalm begins, “Lord, my heart is not proud.” St. Augustine listed “the three greatest virtues of Christianity: humility, humility, and humility.” Being humble is a choice to credit God, not ourselves, for our abilities, and then to use those gifts in God’s service. Psalm 131 is a song of David, who was elevated as king of Israel, yet one who knew humility. Just as David compares himself to a sheep under the care of a Shepherd (Ps 23), he compares himself here to a child in his mother’s arms.      Why is it that nearly all our Presidents remark upon attaining this high office that it is a “humbling” experience? Particularly after a year of campaigning, selling their qualifications to the voting public, and hearing daily how “great” they are. Once elected, they realize that they are bringing their finite, limited abilities to this office. They’re no longer tuned into the flattering praise; they’re thinking of the responsibilities and challenges that lie ahead. As Shakespeare put it, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”     Humility is an exclusively Jewish virtue. The ancient philosophers admired self-reliance. Humility was decidedly not on their list of virtues. Things haven’t changed much; our modern culture also downplays humility. We’re in an age where might makes right, where power and control are most highly regarded. It’s hard to even recognize pride as a sin when it is rewarded as an achievement. We have to go back to the Garden of Eden to see pride as the basic sin, of taking things into your own hands, being your own god, improving yourself by whatever means you can to get ahead, regardless of the price. The sin of pride is revealed in self-sufficiency, self-importance, self-righteousness and self-indulgence.      We mistakenly assume that the opposite of pride means being timid and insecure, to be and to attempt nothing. Humility is not inferiority or poor self-esteem; it is seeing our strengths and weaknesses honestly, and not letting either keep us from accomplishing what we need to do. Some people let misguided humility keep them volunteering to help their church. Humility is recognizing that our strength comes from God. He doesn’t need us, but He wants to use us. Our reach can exceed our grasp, because of capabilities we owe to God. Humility is not pretending we do not have gifts and abilities we know we have. Humility is simply making a truthful, modest estimate of ourselves. Pride causes us to lie to ourselves.     Proud people are usually involved with what they regard as important and significant things; they wouldn’t lower themselves with things “beneath” them. In contrast, David admits “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.” Deuteronomy reminds us, “the secret things belong to the Lord our God” (29:29). We shouldn’t trouble ourselves over imponderable things. Maturity means accepting things we can’t comprehend. Anselm, an 11th Century monk penned this prayer: “I do not seek, O Lord, to penetrate Thy depths. I by no means think my intellect equal to them; but I long to understand in some degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe, that I may understand.” This is the mature expression of a seasoned saint.     A present day believer, singer Steven Curtis Chapman, sings of his struggles, admitting in song, “the pain fell like a curtain on the things I once called certain and I have to say the words I fear the most-‘I just don’t know’.” He goes on to accept uncertainty because “God is God and I am not.”     David opens this psalm by acknowledging his humility, but he is not proud of being humble. In a Peanuts cartoon Linus tells Charlie Brown, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m twice as humble as you!” A minister wanted to be humble so he walked into the sanctuary and started crying out “I am nothing. I am nothing.” The associate Pastor picked up on this and he too began crying out, “I am nothing.” The custodian was doing some work in the church and hearing the ministers, he also began to repeat, “I am nothing.” The two ministers stopped, and the senior minister said, “Now look who thinks he’s nothing.”     B. Contentment (verse two) In Bible times children were not fully weaned till they were two or three years old. The completion of the weaning was often celebrated with a feast. A “weaned” child is one who is content-not anxious or demanding, but filled and nourished, satisfied, resting quietly beside a nurturing mother. The process of weaning is not usually a smooth one-there is lots of crying and distress. It’s not easy to quiet one’s self, particularly when we’re being denied some things we want. But weaning is a necessary stage of growth.      Some Christians worry because they no longer ‘feel’ the euphoric way they did when they first came to Christ. They may wonder if they’ve lost their salvation. Fortunately, being a Christian has little to do with feeling. The reason we no longer feel the same is that the ‘newness’ of our faith is past, and we’ve been weaned. Growth is part of life. We’re no longer infantile. We’re growing up in our faith; we’re in a new stage of development. Weaning is necessary if we are to mature. We’re moving from milk to solid food, and learning to be content.     Pride kills contentment and thanksgiving. When we admit that God is the Source of every blessing, we turn in gratitude and give Him the credit. Proud people are seldom grateful, because they don’t think they’re getting as much as they deserve. This past Thursday some people enjoyed turkey dinners and football games but without a word of thanks. Humility produces thankfulness as a normal aspect of our daily living. We don’t need a designated day to be thankful; we’re grateful all the time. We don’t take our blessings for granted, and we certainly don’t think we’re the source of our prosperity.     Babies initially regard their mothers as means of satisfying their needs-for food, protection, warmth…and gradually they learn to love their mothers for their own sake. In the same way we learn to live with God and trust Him–He becomes a vital part of our life, and not simply because of what we can get from this relationship. We simply appreciate God for Who He is.      Contentment requires quiet contemplation, which takes time, a commodity in short supply in our hectic world. How can we “still” our souls when we’re constantly distracted by all sorts of urgent issues? I assume that one reason we’re here in church is because we recognize the need to slow down and reflect on who we are, to get connected to God. We find our quiet place where there are no cell phones, where projects are placed aside for awhile, so we can focus on things eternal.     C. Trust (verse 3) When soldiers return from long deployments, their children often cling to them, afraid that they’ll leave again. We aren’t clinging to God in anxious dependency and insecurity-we are trusting God out of the calm assurance that He will never leave us and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.    In order to “hope in the Lord” we have to recognize our dependence on God. To be “haughty” (vs 1) means to regard one’s self as elevated-haughty comes from the word “high”. The spirit of this world tells people to “get ahead” and strive for “upward mobility.” To keep from looking down on people we may need some “downward mobility”. Before we put our hope in the Lord we have to cease placing our hope in ourselves.     Our trust in God may have been shaken by the events of September 11th. A missionary to Africa had this to say about trust: “I can show you the graves of missionaries who died what we would call premature deaths. If my trust were in God’s protection, my trust would have crumbled long ago. My trust is in God, in the belief that He is in control and that whatever happens will happen for His glory.” We can mistakenly place our trust in God’s protection rather than God Himself. Such misplaced trust can lead to disillusionment. Trust means we accept whatever happens as from God-for our good and His glory. Trust and hope are not temporary attitudes-they are sustained forces at work in our lives-“both now and forevermore.”

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Max Lucado — Fear. His modus operandi…

Fear.  His modus operandi is to manipulate you with the mysterious, to taunt you with the unknown.  Fear of death, fear of failure, fear of God, fear of tomorrow- his arsenal is vast.  His goal?  To create cowardly, joyless Christians.  He doesn’t want you to make that journey to the mountain.  He figures if he can rattle you enough, you will take your eyes off the peaks and settle for a dull existence in the flat lands.
Max Lucado

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Joseph Stowell — Eternity is primary…

Eternity is primary.  Heaven must become our first and ultimate point of reference.  We are built for it, redeemed for it, and on our way to it.  Success demands that we see and respond to now in the light of then.  All that we have, are, and accumulate must be seen as resources by which we can influence and impact the world beyond.  Even our tragedies are viewed as events that can bring eternal gain.
Joseph Stowell

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Thomas Curtis Clark — God gave me joy in the common things…

God give me joy in the common things:
In the dawn that lures, the eve that sings.
In the new grass sparkling after rain,
In the late wind’s wild and weird refrain;
In the springtime’s spacious field of gold,
In the precious light by winter doled…
God give me joy in the tasks that press,
In the memories that burn and bless;
In the thought that life has love to spend,
In the faith that God’s at journey’s end.
Thomas Curtis Clark

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer — The hungry need bread…

The hungry need bread and the homeless need a roof; the dispossessed need justice and the lonely need fellowship; the undisciplined need order and the slaves need freedom.  To allow the hungry to remain hungry would be blasphemy against God and one’s neighbor, for what is nearest to God is precisely the need of one’s neighbor.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer