Are you a control freak? Are you the kind of person who has to have an on/off switch for everything? I have some good news for you—well, some of it good, and some of it bad. Which do you want first? You want the bad first? OK here goes; many things are out of our ability to control. So, can we define which and which not? Yes, all things that re-create me as “God” situationally are not, my dear friends, consented to, going forward. I can never hold my stuff’s control to the extent that God does, and this registers bad news for some. It means; I can never predict or dictate a situation’s outcome, or pull things together by some power-demonstration which pushes all to finally perform their duty, enabling the problem to simply work itself out. Did you notice how that many problems are because others are just not…
Tag: <span>adversity</span>
“Beverly 79” Part 3 must now follow. We can’t dismiss the need for discipline, focus, enduring in times when things seem to be quite impossible. We will have many moments overwhelmed, many occasions of pain and disgust. We will not be spared the heartache. We will not find easy fixes for these times. I must qualify my convictions—they were built in times of war, in times of battle, in times of defeat, in times of despair. “Disillusionment, O my faithful companion; disheartening, my enduring guide.”. Failure has been a friend, and mine has been tears. I lost my face, I lost my son, I lost my dignity and even my hope. My gain? Christ. O undeservingly yes— but nevertheless Him. An easier message for you I have not in my bag. I weep to think I would trade anything of my trouble; I would not. In helplessness we discover Helps…
Healing is all of this and more. Well, you might say, I was wounded when my husband left me 4 years into the marriage and I have never recovered. I had received Christ as a child and my spouse and I served Him for most of our youth years. I will never be the same. Can I say this in a kind way; this problem, and also the problem of multitudes, is not that you were hurt at age 25. The deeper issue is that all of mankind since Adam are built out of wound-able stock. Even if reunited to the correct power source as a child, and graced with the re-gene of Jane Smith at that time, you still had a critical piercing that found and did damage to a vulnerable area of your soul. I must by honest, and sensitive, but the part of you that was wounded…
God spoke to me this way: “I heal men in the same way I healed the whole human race.” Forces oppose our cure: The first tries to blockade the unfolding truth revelation, including both; God’s true nature and God’s true redemption. Second, targets the human faculty for digesting, understanding and adopting the unfolding disclosure. Third, inhibits focus continuity so the healing can’t continue a constant. God heals mankind this way: one, purchases them out of the slave market of sin and self. Two, He sets their feet on a rock. Three, He establishes their going. All can be viewed from the unfolding revelation of what a man exists as, stays as, and proceeds as. Man is made for stability. Before the fall we see man always in the light of God’s overshadowing countenance. We see relationship, we see fellowship, love. In the departure from these, we see man alone and…
When I was starting out in the religious way as a mere sprig, I had a few harrowing moments. New beliefs and practices tutored us (my sister and I). We never doubted their veracity. In the Catholic Church you ‘go’ to confession, every second or third Friday evening. Church was usually empty, with the exception of the few confessors, and dim looking, especially when dark outside. It had the feel of a museum, with echoes resounding at a door closing, or, drop of a missal. (Yes, I meant “missal”; the Catholics called a prayer book a “missal”). So; high cathedral ceilings dropped huge chandeliers from long long cable wires, but tonight only a little light shone on the many pictures in the auditorium-sized building, Michelangelo’s brush-strokes emanating. Life-sized statues of saints and Mary and Jesus with a golden heart were also visible without spot-lights, from secondary illuminations, and the…
coal stokers in tandem Hab 3:17-19 17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: 18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. 19 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments. Ever happen to you? —The siege of starving, abyss of emptyness, cauldron of flames, blackness, cut off from simple life? —Pain of waking, wrestling match of emotions, dread of enemies approach. A lot of the Bible found expression out of these depths—Paul in jail, Job…