Tag: God

CaregivingDevotionalsGiveawayInformation

God IS in Control

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 God…is the blessed controller of all things. 1 Timothy 6:15 (Phillips)

God IS in Control

What a year it has been already! There have been some sad events: burying my mother-in-law, watching my father suffer through a serious infection. There has also been a rumbling in our lives as the stone has been rolled away from the tomb of some long-standing dreams. I can’t share the details, but I have witnessed enough miracles in the last month alone to move me to tears and remind me that God is a God of wonders.

When He closes a door, it’s closed. Solid. No amount of moving or praying can budge it.

When He opens a door, it’s flung wide to let in the fresh air of hope.

Whatever’s going on in your lives, rest in the trust that God does hear your prayers. And He really cares about you. As I’ve shared in the last couple of weeks in recent devotionals When Dead Men Speak and Beyond the Grave at CMADDICT.com, God moves in sovereign and powerful ways far beyond our ability to imagine.

Events of these last weeks have encouraged me to step out more boldly in His steps. It’s a fearsome thing to follow behind the Savior, knowing all He gave up to answer His Father’s call. But it’s more frightening to remain in the shadows of my faith, where fear rules the night.

Come with me, my friends. Let’s push aside the stumbling blocks that have kept us from being all God has called us to be. We can serve with joy, knowing our struggles are not in vain. He is still “the blessed Controller of all things.”

Do you know someone who takes care of a loved one?

Can you imagine how hard it is for them to make it through another day?

You can help! I still need people to join my team for the launch of my new book, Out from the Shadows: 31 Devotions for Weary Caregivers. You don’t need special skills or a great social media following to help. Just read my previous post (click here) and pick 5 ideas there or send me 5 of your own ideas and you’re on the team. There will be a drawing for a Kindle Paperwhite e-reader in March for those who become team members. E-mail me at thesong2008@live.com and put “Influencer Request” in the subject line. Thanks!

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DevotionalsInformation

Know What You Believe…and Why

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A fossil was recently found in Gilboa, New York, in sedimentary rock that supposedly dated back 380 million years. It was the fossil of a spider. What was this spider doing? Nothing new. It was making a web, just like modern spiders.

Ever wonder why a spider doesn’t get caught in its own web? It’s because each silk gland has a specific purpose. They have one to four pairs of spinnerets in their abdomens, along with seven silk glands connected to dozens of tiny tubes. Each gland secretes a substance that begins as a liquid but hardens in the air. The silk thread it produces is fine enough to make bomb sights but as strong as steel.*

If the spider evolved over millions of years, how did it and its young survive without dying in its own web until it evolved the correct glands?

This is just one of the many questions scientists have yet to answer as we explore Earth’s beginnings. The more we study nature, the more complex our world appears. It is not a random collection of organic and inorganic mass. Everything has a purpose. Every species has an unseen boundary built into. Bears always produce more bears. Spiders stay spiders. Nature seems to know its place and thrives there.

Is this chance?

I’m not convinced. If just once, a pack of wolves would have a video conference, a bear would become a beekeeper, or a roomful of monkeys could type a book in a million years, I might be swayed. If just once, a sealed can of peaches produced even a molecule of a new life form (the unsealed stuff in my fridge doesn’t count), you might have me.

But don’t show me a moth that changed its color or a snake with two heads.

Show me a Norwegian that is evolving a fur coat. Show me a youth pastor that is growing a guitar on his chest. I want to talk to a lizard that decided to improve his mind or a teacher with a finger that oozes red ink for correcting papers.

I want to see random processes produce order.

Let’s see mutations make something without using God’s dirt and God’s laws of nature. If you’re going to take God out of the picture, be fair and start from scratch, like He did.

Both evolutionists and creationists believe that all things came from nothing. The Bible tells us that He spoke the universe into being by the power of His word alone. Evolutionists believe that nothing somehow sparked a life form. Some folks believe God started the process and let evolution take over.

What do you believe? Why do you believe it?

Tonight Bill Nye “the science guy” and Ken Ham of the Creation Museum of Petersburg, Kentucky, will publicly debate the tenets of both theories. NPR has announced the debate, along with competing videos from the two men http://n.pr/1frnFz5. The debate begins at 7:00p.m. EST.

Here’s the link to watch it free online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI

Know what you believe. Listen and weigh the evidence from both sides. The truth will always withstand scrutiny.

 

*From “Origins Issues” by Frank Sherwin, Acts & Facts, vol. 35, #5

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ChristmasDevotionals

Always Living

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For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
-Hebrews 4:12

It had been a rough morning, the crown to a rugged week. I was feeling pretty down when I arrived at church Sunday morning. I reflected back on the events of the last couple of months. There were times when the effort of living for Christ seemed futile.

I didn’t really believe that. I just felt that way. Tired. Discouraged. Insignificant against the battle that waged around me in a world determined to dig its way to hell.

Spinning my wheels.

Then the music started. I stood with the others as the worship team ushered the church into the presence of God. I halfheartedly joined in. Midway through the first song, the ice in my soul began to melt.

The pastor stepped onto the podium and opened God’s Word. From it flowed a message that has changed my life. It was the exact message I needed for that day and that moment, preached from just three verses in Luke.

Tears welled up in my eyes and threatened to escape down my face. I wished I wasn’t in the presence of so many other people. It didn’t feel right to be sitting at such a moment. I wanted to kneel. Or get on my face. God’s Word pulled me out of my self and into a place of grateful worship.

I have been a Christian for nearly forty years. I have read the Bible through many times and studied it for decades. And yet, on Sunday morning, I heard something new and radically empowering from three simple verses.

That’s what I love about the Bible. It isn’t just a book. It’s even more than a good book. It’s a living organism. Like the Creator from which it sprang, God’s Word is infused with supernatural power that breathes out the golden air of heaven.

It speaks. It speaks at the right moment, to our exact need. In His Word, God comes to us as the Healer, the Comforter, the Teacher, the Absolute Authority.

He wants to speak to you.

This Christmas, make the holidays holy days. Resist the temptation to push aside reading God’s Word and fellowship with others as those shopping days before Christmas get shorter and shorter. Take nothing for granted and set aside time to let God communicate with you. He has something important to say.

And it’s His birthday, after all.

 

photo courtesy Erik Thorson/2013

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ChristmasDevotionals

What Is Your Calling?

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Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” -Isaiah 6:8

He came to earth for one reason: to complete the work given Him by His Father. For that work He sacrificed a normal existence, His own human longings, and eventually His life. He suffered daily agony. He died completely alone, forsaken even by the Father He came to serve.

It was His calling.

As we indulge in the season’s festivities, may we never lose sight of the very large footprints in which we follow. Over the ages we have added a lot of glitter and shine to a work of God that was bloody and cold.

Birth is messy. Stables are messy. Dying is messy.

The Savior walked a path filled with danger and hardship. He didn’t have to. But He did, for a world that didn’t even care.

As the year draws to a close, where are you in service to your King? Are you confused because you aren’t sure what you’re supposed to be doing for God? Are you discouraged because your efforts to serve Him seem to have little impact on those around you?

Is the messiness of life too distracting?

He is calling you today, in the midst of the clamor. He wants to speak to you right now. In fact, He is waiting for you.

Go to His Word. Close the door on the world and open up the Bible. You will find the words you need for this hour. If you need encouragement, it is there. If you’re looking for direction, you’ll find it. If you’re hungry for fresh inspiration, He has it.

Wait for Him. Breathe in His life. Don’t move until you see the next step in front of you. Listen for the call. It will come.

May your response be, “Here am I. Send me!”

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Devotionals

Is God Tired of Us?

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My son Kevin recently watched an award-winning 2006 documentary called God Grew Tired of Us. At his recommendation, I watched it last night. Kevin told me to be prepared to cry.

I was prepared to cry. But I wasn’t prepared to grieve.

The camera follows the story of three young Sudanese men who emigrate to America from the refugee camp in which they have lived since their flight from Sudan years before. The film backtracks to document the violent events which killed and scattered their families and left them to survive alone. As youngsters, John, Daniel, and Panther joined the thousands of “Lost Boys” who made the long trek across treacherous terrain without food or water in search of safety in another country.

They were among the fortunate ones who survived the journey. After years in a refuge camp, they were eventually chosen to emigrate to America. Through the lens, we watch them live the joy of hope, the bewilderment of being thrust into a new culture, and the determination to build new lives in this country. I laughed as they struggled to learn how to turn on a light and tasted their first potato chips. I flinched when they wondered what Santa and a tree of lights had to do with the birth of Jesus Christ.

I cried as they walked in amazement through grocery stores bulging with food, their new American clothes hanging from their gaunt frames as a pudgy American stared at them with frank distaste. I was amazed at their love for one another, their commitment to care for those they left behind, their simple appreciation for all that we take for granted.

It was painful to hear John, in his measured and thoughtful manner, express the belief that God had grown tired of his country and had allowed chaos and death to consume his beloved Sudan. His humility was touching. I grieve for the arrogance with which we have left behind such simplicity of heart.

And it made me wonder: Is God growing tired of us? Will He weary of bestowing abundance on an ungrateful, unbelieving nation? The group that made the trek across Sudan are called “The Lost Boys.”

But I wonder who is really lost.

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