bible – Page 11 – thelifeididntchoose

Holding On To Hope With Both Hands

I confess that I have not had a wholehearted desire to study Scripture since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.

Oh, I nibble on verses every day, but I’ve shied away from the feast that used to fill my heart and soul.

This year, though, I’m committing to a more diligent approach-choosing to focus on one word per month and writing out corresponding verses. I am studying them, looking up cross-references, considering context and making personal application in my journal.

So the first word I chose was “Hope” because I think of all the things I’ve struggled most to hold onto in this life I didn’t choose, hope is the hardest.

In my flesh, I want to give up and give in.

If Heaven is my ultimate destination and I can’t control the future, why not just coast until the Lord calls me home? Why work so hard to live up to a high standard when grace covers it all? Why lift my head when head down or head up, I’m assured of eternal joy?

I’m just being honest here.

But I know, deep in my spirit, that this is not the purpose for which I was created. I was not made by a loving Father to plod hopelessly through this world. He breathed life into my soul so that I could fulfill His kingdom purpose in this place, at this time.

So I get back on the proverbial horse every time I’m tossed off and try again.

Here are just a couple of the verses that are speaking courage to me, helping me hold onto hope with both hands.

I hope they whet your appetite (as they have mine) for finding more.

O my soul, why are you so overwrought?
    Why are you so disturbed?
Why can’t I just hope in God? Despite all my emotions, I will hope in God again.
    I will believe and praise the One
    who saves me and is my life,
My Savior and my God.

Psalm 43:5 VOICE

“Despite all my emotions” I will hope in God again. God created me with emotions. They are a gift (even though sometimes it doesn’t seem that way!). But I cannot be ruled by them.

Emotions are changeable.

Truth is not.

So I have to turn my heart by an act of will toward the truth that God is my Savior, He is my hope.

We live with hope in the Eternal. We wait for Him,
    for He is our Divine Help and Impenetrable Shield.
Our hearts erupt with joy in Him
    because we trust His holy name.
O Eternal, drench us with Your endless love,
    even now as we wait for You.

Psalm 33: 20-22 VOICE

I love the phrase from Psalm 33:20 “our hearts erupt with joy”! This life is hard and joy is often a distant memory or a fleeting moment, but there will be a Day when my heart will be so full of joy-when every hard and hurtful thing is redeemed-that the joy will overflow like lava from a volcano.

No stopping it!

Now that’s something to hope for!

If your heart needs help leaning in and holding on, here’s a link to a month’s worth of short verses focused on hope: Think on These Things: Hope

Print it out and tuck it in a journal or your Bible. You can even look up the verses online and check out different translations. (Something I love to do because it often reveals things I might overlook!) Copy them out. It only takes a few minutes. Then underline the phrase or phrases that stand out to you.

Make them your own.

Hide the words in your heart.

Let the Word of God speak life and love to your soul.

Qualified by Hopelessness: An Empty Heart Can Be Filled

I don’t know about you but I’ve never thought of hopelessness as something I wanted on my resume.

Hopelessness is typically tossed into the pile of “negative” feelings we all acknowledge but don’t want to experience and if we do, we try to minimize, rationalize or disguise them.

If I admit to it at all, I tend to look downward, whisper quickly and pray that no one takes much notice because it feels shameful.

But maybe hopelessness is the first step to truly celebrating Christmas.

Think about Scrooge. When was his heart able to make the turn and embrace the joy that Christmas represents? It took one long night and four strange visitors to take him down a path where he understood his own strength was woefully inadequate to accomplish anything. It was finally the spectre of death-death of relationships, death of a child and the certainty of his own lonely demise that shook him from slumber and awakened him to real life and love and joy.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Now consider the story of the first Christmas. Two poor sojourners in desperate need of a place to stay and, even more important, a place to birth a baby.

But not just any baby. No, this was the Promised One, Immanuel, Jesus, Messiah, Light of the World. Yet He made His appearance in the dark, in a stable and unnoticed.

I don’t know if Mary felt hope-filled or hopeless as she labored without the company of other women to encourage and guide her. But I can imagine there were moments if not hours, of something like hopelessness.

Yet it ended with her holding the God of the universe in her hands.

What about Israel? Four hundred long years since Jehovah had shut the mouths of prophets and allowed the Apple of His Eye to wallow in the darkness they had begged for by turning away from the God Who loved them. Prophesies were still handed down like good luck tokens but many who heard them had long ago decided they didn’t matter.

It was dark in the world of Judea.

So, so very dark.

Hopelessness prevailed.

And that is precisely when the angel showed up and the sky was bright with praise:

Don’t be afraid! Listen! I bring good news, news of great joy, news that will affect all people everywhere. Today, in the city of David, a Liberator has been born for you! He is the promised Anointed One, the Supreme Authority!

~Luke 2:10-11 VOICE

It was all the brighter because it was dark. It was that much more joyous because hopeless hearts were longing for something to cling to.

There is no shame in being hopeless and broken.

God loves the broken. Christ came for the broken. It’s the broken and breathless who long for the Spirit to blow life across their wounded hearts.

It’s the hopeless and fearful that run faster to the safety of their Shepherd.

It’s the worried and weary who are thankful for a Burden-bearer.

Christmas is the story of Hope entering the world, of Light shining forth in darkness, of Love overcoming death.

A heart has to be looking to find it.

A heart has to be desperate to believe it.

A heart has to be hungry to come to the table of everlasting bread.

Have you been living in the land of deep shadows? I have. I’ve spent long years in that gray and weary country, and sometimes it makes me feel disqualified from Christmas. Most Christmas carols do not talk about daunting shadows or dreary days. They talk about sparkle and shimmer. They talk ho-ho-ho-ing and mistletoeing, and all of that is fine and fun if you’re having a great year. But let’s be honest about the fact that this relentless commercialized happiness is not really what lives at the heart of Christmas.

Christmas is deeper than that. It reaches into darker places. Jesus didn’t come to cheer us up. He came into the shadowlands we call home to set us free. He came to untangle us from the despair that wraps itself around our joy and peace and purpose. It seems, then, that hopelessness is the very first qualification for receiving the bright hope of Christmas. Perhaps you are exactly where you need to be to experience the miracle of Advent after all.

~Bo Stern, When Holidays Hurt

Willing Submission or Fatalism?

I have to be completely honest-I’m not sure at all that my heart is truly submissive. It may just be that I figure, “What’s the point of resisting God?”.

Paul told the Roman believers to “present your bodies as living sacrifices”.

Trouble is, living sacrifices can (and do!) crawl off the altar.

I’m trying to stay there, subtle and malleable under the hand of the God Who made me. But unlike inanimate clay, I feel every pummel, slap and squeeze as He continues to mold me into the image of Christ.

Some days I’m better at it than others. Honestly, I think I’m better at it when I feel it most. Because then I recognize the bits that need changing, the attitudes that need adjusting, the habits that need to go.

But when it’s little things-judging someone by his outer appearance or demanding my “rights” as a customer from a tired store clerk or even impatiently charging through the house ignoring a phone call because I “have to get (whatever) done!”-that’s when I want out from under the hand of God.

Then there are the REALLY big things that I always balk at.

Why do I have to be ill when I have so much to do? Why my child? Why do all the appliances need replacing at once? Why are relationships so darn hard? Why won’t my RA go into remission? Why did the hurricane make its way right over my parents’ home?

Why, why, why?

And I find myself back at the beginning because truth told, I can’t do a thing about any of that.

Am I willingly submitting to what God allows in my life or am I simply accepting it because there’s no use resisting?

It’s a daily battle.

Still, Eternal One, You are our Father. We are just clay, and You are the potter. We are the product of Your creative action, shaped and formed into something of worth.

Isaiah 64:8 VOICE

Hidden Manna

I’ve thought often of what good, if any, can come from child loss.

I do not think for one minute that God “took” my son to teach me a lesson or to mold me in some way.

But I do believe with my whole heart that God can USE this circumstance to conform me more closely to the image of Christ Jesus.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

Romans 8: 26-30 MSG

I also cling firmly to the conviction that there are things I can learn, truths I can understand and depths of love and grace I can fathom that are not available to hearts who have not walked the road of sorrow and trod the path of grief.

There are things I know because I have been forced to travel the Valley of the Shadow of Death that those who are spared will never know.

I truly believe this is some of the “hidden manna” Jesus promises to those who persevere under trial, who resist the lies and lure of the evil one and who persist in holding onto hope in spite of all evidence that screams, “Let go!”

Let everyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: Everyone who is victorious shall eat of the hidden manna, the secret nourishment from heaven; and I will give to each a white stone, and on the stone will be engraved a new name that no one else knows except the one receiving it.

Revelation 2:17 TLB

My testimony is not flashy. But it doesn’t have to be.

You won’t find me doing a victory lap around a defeated foe.

Instead I cling tenaciously to the truth that God’s faithful love endures forever and that death is no longer the last word.

I swallow every bit of strength the Spirit offers me.

Resurrection, redemption and resurrection are coming.

And I wait, in hope, and with assurance that my story does not end in ashes.

❤

The resurrection of Jesus was a hidden event. Jesus didn’t rise from the grave to baffle his opponents, to make a victory statement, or to prove to those who crucified him that he was right after all. Jesus rose as a sign to those who had loved him and followed him that God’s divine love is stronger than death. To the women and men who had committed themselves to him, he revealed that his mission had been fulfilled. To those who shared in his ministry, he gave the sacred task to call all people into the new life with him.

The world didn’t take notice. Only those whom he called by name, with whom he broke bread, and to whom he spoke words of peace were aware of what happened. Still, it was this hidden event that freed humanity from the shackles of death.

~Henri Nouwen

Something to Hold On To When You Feel Like Letting Go

I have to talk to myself all the time.

Literally.

There are some mornings I open my eyes and would do just about anything to be able to stay in bed, hide under the covers and wish the day away.

But I can’t.

So I recite truth until my heart can hear it. I speak courage to my own spirit.

If you are feeling weak and weary today, may I share a few of my favorites?

I don’t have to arrive at the finish line cute and perky, I only have to complete the course even if I’m barely crawling or dragging myself the last few feet.

Endurance IS the victory and perseverance IS faith.

God’s grace is enough. Sometimes I don’t believe it but that doesn’t make it untrue. God promises to provide the strength I need when I need it. When I am weak, He is strong.

Even the very WORST day of my life only lasted 24 hours. All I have to do is live this moment, this hour and this day. Every morning is a new beginning with new mercy and sufficient grace. Every sunrise is a reminder that God is still on the throne and still in control.

What a precious promise that the King of the Universe, the Creator of all things, the God of Heaven is keeping track of MY tears! Not a single drop hits the ground but that He scoops it up and saves it. One day every one will be redeemed.

God isn’t finished with me yet. He is working in and through me to conform me to the likeness of Christ. That work is often painful. But He is going to use even this most awful, heartbreaking thing.

When all else fails and a day is full of tears and sorrow, I remember that there will be a Day-a glorious Day!-when every single tear will be wiped away and, in the words of the Jesus Storybook Bible, “Every bad thing will come untrue.”

Hallelujah!

Amen!

When I Don’t Know What to Pray: Praying the Names of God

The Bible says that “The Name of the LORD is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are saved.” (Proverbs 18:10)

Clearly that does NOT mean that every person who calls on the Name of the LORD will be kept physically whole.

Many, many believers have suffered and died while the name of Christ is on their lips.

But I do believe that in a very real, very meaningful way, calling on the Name of the LORD has saved me.

It saved me first from my sin and guarantees that I will meet my son in eternity.

And it continues to save me when I am at the end of my own resources and need to appropriate the strength of my Heavenly Father to hold onto hope.

Over twenty-five years ago I was introduced to a wonderful book by Sylvia Gunter called PRAYER PORTIONS. My copy is battered, dog-eared, torn and treasured.

It is full, full, full of wonderful teaching about prayer and, more importantly, of biblical prayers to actually PRAY.

While my prayer life post child loss is not at all what it used to be, I still rely on her list of the names and attributes of God to help my heart make it through tough days.

Here is one Alphabet of the Names and Attributes of God

Abba Father – Gal. 4:6

Balm of Gilead – Jer. 8:22

Comforter – 2 Cor. 1:3

Deliverer – Ps. 18:2

Everlasting God – Isa. 40:28

Father of Mercy – 2 Cor. 1:3

Good Shepherd – John 10:11-15

Holy One – Pro. 9:10

Intercessor – Heb. 7:25

Judge of the living and thedead – 1 Peter 4:5

King Eternal – 1 Tim. 1:17

Light of revelation – Luke 2:32

Man of sorrows – Isa. 53:5

Never-failing One – Heb. 13:5

Offering for sin – Heb 10:14

Potter – Isa. 64:8

Quieting Love – Zeph. 3:17

Righteous – 1 Cor. 1:30-31

Santification – 1 Cor. 1:30-31

Teacher – John 14:26

Upholder of all things – Isa. 41:13

Very present help – Ps. 46:1

The Way – John 14:6

Exalted – Psa. 148:13

Your glory and lifter of your head – Ps. 3:3

Zealous – John 2:17

From PRAYER PORTIONS by Sylvia Gunter

I pray that it helps your heart as much and as often as it helps mine.

Repost: Feet of Clay

It’s not just my feet that are made of clay! I am clay from top to bottom and I am reminded of that fact every day. I try and fail. I strive but make no progress. I want to do better, but I don’t.

God is not surprised. I do not have to live up to some impossible standard in order for Him to love me. He made me, He knows me and He loves me. Covered by the blood of Christ I am free to live in that love, to love others from that love.

God is not offended by my human frailty. He isn’t looking down from Heaven, shaking His head at my halting steps forward on this long, hard road.

He understands my fear, my sadness, my longing for wholeness.

But sometimes it’s hard for me to remember that.

Read the rest here: Feet of Clay

Flying Lessons

My dad is a pilot and flight instructor.

He’s flown everything from a single engine private plane to a fighter jet in all kinds of weather-good and bad.

When I was a little girl, he’d take me with him sometimes while he gave a flight lesson. If he was teaching instrument flying, the student would wear a hood that restricted his vision to just the plane’s instrument panel.

No external visual cues allowed.

The test came when the student’s senses told him something different than the instruments were telling him-would he give in to what he thought was true but couldn’t validate OR would he rely on the trusty instruments that had proven faithful?

Some students just could not let go of their feelings and never did gain their instrument flight rating.

Some learned (even when it went against everything they were feeling) to lean on the absolutely reliable instruments to guide them safely to their destination.

These years since Dominic ran ahead to heaven feel like instrument flying.

I’m in the clouds.

The landmarks I’ve used for navigation all my life are obscured and sometimes I can’t even tell if I’m upside down or right side up. I don’t know if I’m going fast enough to stay in the air or if I’m about to stall. I’m tempted to use my feelings to determine true north and to decide on a course of action.

But I know if I do, I’m likely to crash.

If I ignore the trustworthy and unchangeable truth of God’s Word, I will find myself headed exactly opposite of where I want to go.

If I refuse to listen to good counsel-people I can depend on and who are in a position to see my blind spots-then I cannot correct my path.

When a student decided not to pay attention to the instruments, my dad was right there to take over and get them safely back on the ground.

But for this flight I’m on my own. If I decide to trust my untrustworthy feelings, there’s no one to rescue me.

I have to make a choice.

I have to learn to acknowledge but not trust the feelings that would send me spiraling downward and reach for the truth that can help me steady my flight.

I have got to plot my course based on absolute, reliable Truth.

The pilots that learn to fly in heavy clouds often still feel frightened. They sometimes still feel confused and disoriented.

But they have learned that it’s possible to feel those things and not act on them.

I am learning that too.

To Him Who Overcomes: Promises I Can Count On

Some days I wake up and question EVERYTHING.

Have I allowed myself to be tricked into believing a fairy tale in hopes that it will ease my earthly pain?

Is God Who He says He is? Will He do what He says He will do? How can I be certain?

And then I turn again to the Truth.

Have you ever noticed how focusing your mind on the Word quiets your spirit? In that peaceful silence, faith dissolves fear. God’s revelations about Himself in the Bible—namely, that He is good, sovereign, and our loving Father—have a way of sharpening our perception about whatever we’re facing We can see the true nature of a matter and it is not bigger than our God. As a result, we cast off the staggering weight of our burdens and instead grow a deep-rooted confidence in the goodness and sovereignty of God. My friends, that is the definition of courage.

– Charles Stanley

I take hold of the promises in Scripture. I recite the faithfulness of my Heavenly Father to myself and others in my family and countless generations before me.

I ask His Spirit to bear witness to mine that He can be trusted.

He does.

And then He strengthens me for the journey, giving me what I need to endure.

“The one who conquers through faithfulness even unto death will escape the second death.” ~Revelation 2:11b VOICE
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.” ~Revelation 2: 17b, c KJV
^“And he that overcomes, and he that keeps unto the end my works, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall shepherd them with an iron rod; as vessels of pottery are they broken in pieces, as I also have received from my Father; and I will give to him the morning star.” ~Revelation 2: 26-28 DARBY
“He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” `Revelation 3:5 NASB
“He that overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out no more, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God which is the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from and with my God, and I will write upon him my new name.”~Revelation 3:12 JUB
“He who overcomes [the world through believing that Jesus is the Son of God], I will grant to him [the privilege] to sit beside Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down beside My Father on His throne.” ~Revelation 3:21 AMP

“Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”

~ Jesus (John 14:1-4 MSG)

“See, I come quickly! I carry my reward with me, and repay every man according to his deeds. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the Beginning and the End. Happy are those who wash their robes, for they have the right to the tree of life and the freedom of the gates of the city.”

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”

Let everyone who hears this also say, “Come!”

Let the thirsty man come, and let everyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

He, who is witness to all this, says, “Yes, I am coming very quickly!”

“Amen, come Lord Jesus!”

Revelation 22: 12-14, 17, 20 PHILLIPS

Repost: Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday: A Study in Contrasts

Twenty-four hours separate one of the most outlandish global parties and one of the most somber religious observances on the Christian calendar.

Many of the same folks show up for both.

Mardi Gras, “Fat Tuesday”, is the last hurrah for those who observe Lent-a time of reflection, self-denial and preparation before Resurrection Sunday.

It’s a giant party-food, fellowship and fun-a wonderful way to celebrate the blessings of this life.

Ash Wednesday, by contrast, is an invitation to remember that “from dust you came and to dust you will return”. None of us get out of here alive.

Read the rest here: Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday: A Study in Contrasts

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