In our suffering we may face gloom at dawn, and dawn after dawn, on and on, it stays. Grieving pain is longsuffering, expanding, lingering. It keeps on keeping on, reduces curing to schemes of preservation; ignores the total healing potential. Bodily aches require pain relievers, salves, creams, and rest. Pain of loss needs equal kinds of attention. First of my strategies in soul-trauma was to eliminate downward-turning advancements toward the mind-emotion-conscience etc. especially feelings. This exercise was simply “wound protection,” accepted since making peace with the loitering wound was considered a normal function. I became acquainted with just how much my wound would endure, which was not that much. I nursed it; after all, it assumed a prominent place in my soul. Woundees are a particular breed. As one of them, I didn’t really savor being around negative people. I craved love and attention; it was easy to discern skeptical…
Category: <span>Personal God</span>
Love allured me as my barely remaining chance. Nothing else attracted me. My shattering had stamped out any lingering self-effort in me; even the sense of nerves stirring had vanished. Inertia bound me. I became the man under the bed covers on a cold winter morning, paralyzed. I concluded, “The next transpiration of events would take place toward me, but not from me.” Then God came to me. He found me in my pool of blood, so to speak, and said “live.” Did you hear? God began to talk to me — thoughts of love, reintegration, joining, and joy. Love counterpoised my “death of soul,” percolating the threat and leaving it to seem like a mere concoction of my imagination. Then it set on fire a new beginning. Love’s infiltrating spheroid introduced an orb of extreme well-being in me, a far superior one with warmth and surety. Now, enveloping…
God laughed. Yes, from heaven He laughed in their face, at their calamity, at their delusion. The most sincere, He found hilariously funny, and justly cared not at their cultural correctness. The thoughts in the hearts of these wayward were only evil continually, and God flooded the world with no blinking. Noah in the mean time had built an ark of insulation, got in it with family and some animals, and was shielded from the laughing-wrath event. God didn’t change His mind at the crying of the ark-less, the drowning of the devil-logged proceeded. “Good riddance, I hope you enjoyed your brief excursion here on earth, but now we must move on to a cleansed and scoured new world, (paraphrase mine).” Pro 1:24-26 says, “Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel,…
Taken at creation museum in Kentucky “Hope happens when a person who has none gets some.” “Some what?” “Well, I figure that the firm impression leading them to believe that they will get some is the ‘some,’ for now, giving them hope.” “Oh?” “Well, more than a feeling, they have some kind of promissory indication.” “That helps, but who is doing the promising? Are they trustworthy?” “Must be, or no hope happens.” “Are they able?” “They must be that too.” “Can a random event mess up the promise, even though a person is true and strong?” “I guess.” “I suppose we need a promise from one who is faithful, powerful and above all circumstances to bring hope.” “Like God?” “Yes, it must be God. Hope-giving phenomena relates to the helmet of salvation in Ephesians 6, but also to the helmet of the “hope of salvation” in Thessalonians 5:8. Martin Lloyd-Jones…
I and the Holy Spirit become inseparable when we two walk together agreed, for it is in Psalm 36:9 that “in thy, (His), light we see light.” In 2 Corinthians 4:6 we find these words; “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In Proverbs 4:18 this light progresses in its illumination, and the succession sanctifies us as we go. Now, light and forward movement both, take the “one time” sanctification of our soul, and unfold the glory of it to us in a process. So, we are set apart unto God, once and for all at salvation and the unfolding revelation to us of this fact takes us closer to its truth in a practical realization. We walk in a moment by moment…
Life began on the first day of the week; on that, of all days first, when the sinless Savior died. It came out of Him, a fountain erupted, and swept the plains, valleys and hills till the life-effect sprouted buddings and blooms tall and broad. Bitter waters turned sweet and an ax head swam home to shore. A great net retrieved fish till net-burst, then waters came out of a person’s belly. A man stood up and walked right on the waters; which same waters make glad the city of God. Devils rankled the waters and a storm erupted, heads got washed; then calm resisted so feet got a good washing later. The waters headed north, over the mountains; an ark-boat buoyed, one and only to be seen. Men came out of that time capsule and water became wine at a wedding, many a year later. Yes, showers of blessing drenched the vines and men…
Before the throne of God above, I have a strong and perfect plea, a great High Priest, whose name is love, who ever lives and pleads for me, my name is graven on His hands, my name is written on His heart, I know that while in heaven He stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart, no tongue can bid me thence depart. Selah “When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there, who made an end to all my sin, because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the Just is satisfied, to look on Him and pardon me, to look on Him and pardon me.” The song continues. David feared to bring the ark of God into the city of David, having watched as that Holy Presence smote…
Some folks are sane, others insane. Lined up on one side of the field are health, healthy mind and heart, single-eyed, balanced, and whole. On the other team; divided, double-minded, sick, unbalanced and ignorant are the terms. “Holiness” for man speaks of set-apart-to-God; the other guys can be referred to as “profane.” This second term meant originally, “outside the temple.” The Hebrew brings out these definitions also: “exposed, common, wounded, break a word, dissolve.” Ephesians 2:14-15 teaches: “For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” “He” is Jesus and His Peace creates a buffer of protection for the soul against internal division. What was the middle wall? Enmity, the law of…
“The Lord cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him.” —The call to nearness enables the resistance of worldly temptation.” A.W. Tozer We surrender when conquered, we yield when broken, we capitulate when exhausted; we “cease from our own works.” Ironically, a faith begins here, and also a hope, and also love. As the project stalemates we find contentment with the Project Manager. His presence defines our new beginning; He-in-us becomes hope-of-glory. His nature in us describes love. Oddly enough, finding Him and losing me arrive simultaneously. My dreams dash, my visions smash, my passivity or enterprise collapses and burns. Will breaks now and resolve , conscience bears hampering , and emotions lose care. Rational explanations wanting, we concede. As children we wrestled with my Dad for fun. He would pin us down and cry out, “give up?” We would squirm only to be pinned again. “Give up?” Finally, we got tired, pinned us…
Abraham muffed the next one, big time —fooling around with Sarah’s handmaid, Hagar. He belittles God’s promise and miscalculates God’s ability to accomplish His promise with the true son, Isaac. One explanation would be; the works of God still seem vague to Abe, and not always so easy for him to discern. Not to defend Abe, but maybe when Sarah made the suggestion to reproduce a child with her handmaid, Abram could have thought, “God must work this way in a practical-sense.” Lets be real, Abraham was being schooled in an intricate-walk-with-God “faith” classroom. To state the obvious, God shows Himself not to the human eye. Abraham, not quite getting it yet, opens the story’s other side to view. I will concede, however, Abe’s sexual-manhood most likely encouraged the compromising. His motives were wrong. Because this was sin, God’s forgiveness remains the only remedy. So, for us a problem also…