Moments

  Be the man you have always wanted to be," That is the wording of some spam sent to me, suggesting I get their product to pump up my masculinity, so to speak. I smiled. But something about the phrase made me think a little deeper. Am I the man I have always wanted to be? Setting aside the masculinity stuff, I pondered the question. I thought back over all I have done; all the places within and without that I have been, and the direction I am heading; the path I am on. Am I the man I have always wanted to be? Goodness! But I have taken a lot of wrong turns; done some things I needed a lot of forgiveness for. I have made enough mistakes and fallen often enough that I just have to laugh at myself. But, I have been forgiven, and I have been freed; picked up and set aright, and put back on course. Now, with most of my lifetime behind me, my days are drawing closer to the finish line. It brings forth the vision of me at the end of a race. It is night. Lights are beaming all around....

  Is it hard sometimes to trust that God has a plan?  When all you can see is pain, discomfort, and discouragement, how do you believe it will turn out for the best according to God's will? According to God's will, it sometimes seems so indistinct.  You just can't get your mind around that when your back is killing you, and you haven't gotten any real sleep in days.  God's will, what is that when you are down to your last thread of hope for your life? Maybe only a thread is all the  hope  you need if  you can trust God with enough faith, to believe the impossible for yourself, to accept "to live and truly take it in that "to live is Christ, to die is gain."  

  My granddaughter was playing on a big pile of dirt, enjoying the simplicity of things that children seem to find so easily. We were on my road that led through the woods. I was there with her, dozing in my truck to protect and defend if necessary, or just to watch and care. We were safe here in this part of the world; this little island of security in an insecure and unsettled world.  My eyes opened when I heard a voice. It was my granddaughter's voice; a quiet tone, singing  I am going to my Father's house.  There in the woods on this dirt pile, with her grandfather being near, she felt safety, security, and comfort in the midst of all that is wrong in the world. We are His children, and even in this place and time, our Father "neither slumbers nor sleeps." He is watching over us as we play out our lives on our little hills of this world. We are His: "in this world but not of it," and our ultimate security is not our little islands in a forest but withi...

  One morning, as I was running early, I started to feel weak.  The legs felt trembly like they were made of Jello.  My strength was gone, and I felt like I used to on the last mile of a marathon: completely spent.  There was no good place to lie down on the side of the road, but I really wanted to badly.  But I knew that if I stopped, it would be doubly hard to get up and moving again. Regardless of how I felt,   I must keep moving back to the vehicle.    So I kept moving back toward the vehicle, one arduous step at a time, until I made it. Life can be like that.  Life drops a bonk on us sometimes and we get a Jello-legged spirit. We want just to lie down and quit: escape at all costs.  But God did not call us to lie down.  He told us to "run the race that is set before us."  He didn't say run the race if you feel good and are not hurting.  He didn't say drop out and escape the pain.  He called us to run our race f...

  Do you sense God's presence during painful times, or does He seem so far away?  Does prayer make a difference when you are in pain?  Does your faith help you remain steadfast and hopeful in painful times?    Times like these, it isn't easy to trust that God has a plan. It is hard to lean on God when you don't know if you will survive the night or not.  So what do you do when the reality of your mortality confronts you with pain and agony you cannot completely control?   What prayers can comfort you in these times of uncertainty?  How do you keep trusting when you are struggling so? Pain is a reality revealer. It reveals that we really cannot control much of anything for any length of time.  And for me, it brought me to my figurative knees that life or death, pain or comfort was ultimately up to God.  And in so doing—praying in the pain, accepting it for as long as God let it remain, for whatever reason He brought me to face i...

  The journey.  Isn't life just a journey from here to there?  Along the way, we age, get sick, and die. The journey ends.  Not much to it, right? Wrong. Indeed, some days, the process, the journey, is painful.  But along the way God is shaping us, communing with us, and giving us God given purpose. But, how do we remain trusting when we are struggling?  How can we possibly be strengthened in painful times?   Sometimes it's hard to keep going through the struggle and the pain and keep trusting that we can trust God. But here is where the rubber meets the road in our faith.  When can we trust God in the dark.  When we can trust Him through the struggles and pain, and still praise Him in the storm at the end of the day, we can know we know God.   And, He will make for us a better day, where there is "no more night, no more pain."