Tag Archives: Psalms

When the house of cards falls – and it will

Posted on August 6, 2014 by | Comments Off on When the house of cards falls – and it will

house-of-cardsWhen I was a child, one of the things I enjoyed was building towers made out of simple playing cards. Within a few short days of the discovery of this “new” entertainment, I was making towers of playing cards that almost reached three feet in height.  I quickly learned from the mistakes in design that caused the house of cards to become unstable and collapse. Remembering the lessons learned from those days of childhood, each time the cards would fall, I saw it as an opportunity to try something different and new. Sometimes I would be able to build even taller until I ran out of cards and other times I would simply not even know where to begin rebuilding. How little did I understand in those days that God was trying to teach me an important lesson that I had forgotten until now.

We have all hit stages in our life where we look around and realize that our life is not where we thought it should have been. Maybe you are not as far along in your career as you had planned to be. Maybe you’ve gone through relationship issues that you thought you would be beyond by now. Maybe you’ve experienced something that has opened old wounds that you are having a hard time overcoming. Maybe today you are standing in the middle of the ashes of great plans or dreams you had and you simply do not know where to start. It is very easy during these times to become distracted, to become angry, and if we allow it, to become bitter towards those around us and God.  It becomes easy to become disgruntled and to blame others instead of really seeking to find out what went wrong. God invites us to do just that: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool (Isaiah 1:18).

In my own life, I have gone through a number of things that did not end the way I thought they should have.  I have experienced the pains of two failed marriages and the feelings of failure, shame, inadequacy, and uncertainty that it brings.  I have experienced the confusion and chaos that the loss of a job can bring when things happen beyond our control. In 2006 and since then, when things have not worked out the way I had hoped, I decided to do just that – to reason with the Lord about why things had not happened the way I had hoped.  It meant for the first time in my life, of being completely candid and honest with myself.  One of the worst things we can do to ourselves is to lie to ourselves; we do it quite often. With my own life, I had a tendency not to acknowledge that my sins were as bad as the sins of others.  In fact, the apostle John wrote, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8) as a warning about the condition of our own heart.  Even the prophet Jeremiah warns, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9). When we fail to see the condition of our own heart and when we fail to understand why we do what we do, we are setting ourselves up for future failures.

In 2006, as I watched everything I thought was certain in my life collapse around me, I decided to do something I had never done.  I share this with you not because I am claiming to be super-spiritual or that I have all of life’s answers, because I don’t. I am simply sharing what has since worked for me. I needed to find out who I was, what my relationship was with the Lord, and for the first time in my life, to truly seek God’s face and will for my life.  I decided to take a Saturday and instead of my normal routine, I left my cell phone at home and took my backpack, a few bottles of water, my knee brace, and my small Bible, and decided to hike every trail in Giant City State Park, spending the time in prayer and in solitude.  I needed to hear from the Lord.  As I locked my car in the parking lot, I said my first sincere prayer of the day; I asked God to open my eyes and to let me see my life as He sees my life.  Folks, that prayer is not for cowards or sissies.  Before I even took my first step out of the parking lot, I took a few minutes to read two chapters of Proverbs and decided that each time I took a break, I would read another two chapters.  I spent the day either in Scripture, in prayer, or thinking on the verses I had read and evaluating the things in my life that had brought me to that point. Sometimes the only way we can really hear from the Lord is to remove ourselves from our daily routines and to truly seek time with the Lord.

What I began to understand for the first time in my life is the importance of seeking the will of God in all that I do.  Whether it is dating, marriage, or even career choice, all too often we have a tendency to make hasty decisions based on emotions or appeal to our vanity.  Solomon wrote, Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding (Proverbs 3:5) and his father, David, wrote O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is (Psalms 63:1). Both verses offer profound guidance for the Christian seeking to really understand what the Lord Jesus Christ would have them to do. This was something that I had never done; I had acted on emotional appeal, perceived appearances, promised personal benefit, and a number of other factors, but never had I made a decision solely based on guidance of the Holy Spirit. Never had I made a decision after consulting only the Lord or seeking out His will for me.  I simply made the decision on my own and had the audacity to blame God when things didn’t work out the way I wanted.

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Posted in Chrisitian Philosophy, Difficulties and Trials, My Walk

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Passing our faith on to the next generation

Posted on July 22, 2014 by | Comments Off on Passing our faith on to the next generation

bibleThis past Sunday, Pastor Alan Ramsey, my pastor, made a comment that is most unfortunately true.  During his Sunday morning sermon, he said that we are seeing the results of a generation that was not brought up in church.  But what he said next has really had me thinking – at least they know about God, but they will be bringing up a generation of children that will not know who God is. Although I was not brought up in a Christian home, I did have family that we visited from time to time that were strong in their faith. One in particular, “Grandma Edith” had a lasting impact on my life.  Although I would not come to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior for about another decade, it was the consistent demonstration of her faith that made an impact on me.

Yesterday, while reading my personal devotional, I came across this passage: I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:  And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God (Psalms 78:2-8).

This is  not the first place where parents, particularly fathers, are commanded to teach the younger generations the things of God.  Nine times in scripture God instructs parents to teach their children about the things of God.  The first occurrence is recorded in Leviticus: And that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses (Leviticus 10:11). God even promised his children through the writings of David, If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore (Psalms 132:12). Sometime between the exodus from Egypt and the death of David, the children were not taught about the miracles of God, about His commandments, or His love for them.  They were not taught about God’s deliverance from Pharaoh, the parting of the Red Sea, or manna provided from Heaven to feed their hunger.  I once heard someone say that if they had been around in those days, they would have made sure that their children and their grandchildren would always remember the mighty works of God.

I have never physically seen the Lord part a sea or river, nor have I seen manna on the ground each morning.  I was not there to see Jesus raise the dead, heal the sick, or teach in the Temple.  Through faith and the reading of His word, we know those stories and we proclaim them to be true, but with our children we read them as if they were stories written by Dr. Seuss. We trivialize the miracles that God has done in the past by making the characters seem more cartoonish and less human and then wonder why children dismiss the reality of the Lord’s grace and love the way they dismiss the worlds and characters created by Walt Disney.  Within the lives of the Christian, there are regular demonstrations of God’s love and grace that we can share with our children and others yet we choose to remain silent.  We choose to keep them to ourselves and not teach the younger generation of what we have seen the Lord do. I have often wondered why Christians do not want to share the things that God has done for them. Instead of hiding them, what if we began to keep a notebook to record those things we witness the hand of the Lord in as a memorial to be shared with the next generation?

I know that in my own life there are many things that the Lord has done that are not only worthy to be shared with others, especially my children.  They need to hear of the difference that the Lord made in my life and how he took my sins, my guilt, and shame and bore it on the cross so that He could fellowship with me. They need to hear of the difference he has made in the life of their grandfather, my dad, who is not the same man as he was thirty years ago.  They need to hear that in times of financial difficulty how He alone provided me food when there was no earthly explanation for what was happening.  They need to hear how He was able to heal my body from injuries that doctors told me would prevent me from ever walking again back in 1989.  I have seen God reach into the lives of the broken-hearted and downtrodden and lift them in love, forgive them, and heal their hearts and minds. God who delivered the children of Israel from the bonds of Egypt is the same God who delivers people from the bondage of sin today. I have seen friends delivered from the power of cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs and placed on a straight path.  In reality, many of you who are reading this can probably list as many things as I can where God’s hand can be seen directly intervening in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Since Sunday, I have added something new to my daily prayers; I’ve begun to ask the Lord to encourage and help me to teach my child still living at home about the goodness of His love and grace and to help me take advantage of every opportunity to share the same things with my children who are already outside the home.  As a parent, I do not want them to have the spiritual struggles that I have had.  I desire for them to have a closer walk with God earlier in their lives and to be able to see greater blessings from the Lord than I have.  I want to be able to rejoice in that day when we are all around God’s throne.  And most of all, I desire that their children and the children of that generation, should the lord tarry, to also know the love and grace of God.

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Posted in Off the cuff, Our relationship with God, Our relationship with our children

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Making the tough decisions; does it matter…

Posted on July 14, 2014 by | Comments Off on Making the tough decisions; does it matter…

4-30-11-Article-Image-1Life is full of tough decisions; some of the decisions can be difficult to make as Christians.  Yesterday, in my Sunday school class, we began a new series that focuses on the central idea that what we surround ourselves with does matter.  While preparing the lesson, I used Psalms 101 as the starting point and had planned to simply focus on one key verse: I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me (Psalms 101:3). As I began to study that particular psalm in greater detail, I began to really think about the lesson that was unfolding before me.

David is one of the Bible’s most beloved Old Testament characters.  His life has been used as a teaching tool for both child and older Christian.  Many people focus on David as the shepherd boy while others focus on David as the King of Israel.  David was not a man without sin; he had an adulterous affair that resulted in a pregnancy.  To hide that pregnancy, he planned and executed the murder of her husband.  He often made hasty decisions that went contrary to the advice of what God had revealed to David through His prophets. Yet God still had this to say about David: For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father (I Kings 11:4). In spite of everything wrong and everything sinful David had done God – Himself – testified that David’s heart was perfect. The book of Acts also bears witness of God’s love for David: And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will (Acts 13:22).

As I studied Psalms 101 it became clear that I was looking at David’s personal desires.  This psalm was the description of the type of man who David wanted to be.  He had reached the point in his life that he was ready to make the tough decisions that we all find difficult to make.  His proclamation, I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me (Psalms 101:3) is the most often quoted verse out of this particular passage of scripture and the starting point for so many studies about how as Christians, we should be careful what we allow ourselves to be visually subjected to.  While it is a good place to start, by no means should it be all we are concerned with doing.  In this particular passage of scripture, not only does David say that he wants to be mindful of what he sets before his eyes, he also is concerned with the people he has around him, those that live in his house, and even the type of man he is when he is in the walls of his own home.  I remember a line from a sermon I heard years ago; the way we act when we think we are alone is the person we really are.  David’s heart’s desire was to be a man who walked with God and God found pleasing not only when others were watching but also when others could not see.

One of the verses that really stood out as I was preparing the Sunday school lesson was, A froward heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person (Psalms 101:4). A froward person is someone who willfully and with all deliberateness, chooses to do what they know is wrong.  The Merriam Webster Dictionary further defines froward as meaning, “habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition.” Each of us know people – family, friends, and coworkers – that if we are honest with ourselves, we know fit that definition. I was not raised in church, I grew up in a mostly secular home and was not taught anything different from what I was exposed to in both the public school system and the Department of Defense Dependents Schools while my father was stationed overseas. At the heart of that educational system was humanism – the idea that there is no God, no supernatural force out there and that humanity was able to decide what was morally right and wrong.

Many of you were exposed to the same thing and like me, have a hard time calling anyone wicked or evil except for those such as Charles Manson and other notorious criminals.  We do not have the same world view of David, or even the Lord Jesus Christ, for that matter.  We do not like the idea of putting people into one of two categories; everyone can be scripturally divided into two peoples: the righteous and the wicked.  There is no “in-between.”  Even Jesus taught this very concept during his conversation with Nicodemus,  He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:18-19).  For many of us, it is hard to accept that even some of the members of our own families would be considered as wicked or evil by the standards of the Bible.  Many of us have even gone to the extent of categorizing sins to make ourselves feel better.  The apostle James even dealt with the early Christians doing the same thing: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all (James 2:10).

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