Content to just lay there?

I am going to ask a tough question today, but if we are truthful on this one, we may just realize a healing at the end. How long are we willing to live WITH our troubles before we ask God to get us out of those troubles? For some of us, it has taken us a long, long time to come to our knees, admitting we have been dealing with this 'trouble' longer than we ever should have. Trouble in the form of bitterness, anger issues, hurt feelings, or attitudes of deep regret and shame. While we are living WITH these 'troubles' we are 'hoping' for something to be different, but we don't really come out and aggressively seek our deliverance from them! It is time to admit we have been living 'with' them for way too long and we need God's help to finally move us from our 'placement' INSIDE those troubles.

Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! (John 5:2-9)

"I can't" are two words Jesus can deal with, but until we utter the ones that admit we actually want our healing, we aren't really ready for it! We might not be able to get ourselves from our 'placement' inside the trouble, but Jesus doesn't even need to change our 'placement' to begin the healing. He just needs to hear that we know we 'cannot' and he 'can'. Notice that the man was still on his mat beside the waters of Bethesda when Jesus asked him if he desired his healing. He had to admit he had no one to carry him to the water, but that didn't stop Jesus. Jesus told him to get up 'from where he was' and be healed. I think we might somehow believe our deliverance from the troubles we have endured for so long will require us to 'move' from here to there. Jesus just asks us to get up!

Too many of us stay right where we are, INSIDE the trouble we have endured a long time, making all kinds of excuses for why we cannot move FROM there. For this man, he remained paralyzed on his mat, beside the pool, with no one to carry him from here to there. For us, it could just be that we have lived with all this anger, bitterness, or feelings of deep hurt all because we think we have 'no one' to move us from here to there. The truth is that the 'one' who needs to move is us and we just haven't moved from being 'flat on our backs' to our knees in humble acknowledgement of our deep need. We just lay around in our 'self-pity', never realizing our healing is right there in front of us.

If we want our deliverance from INSIDE that troubling stuff today, we might just need to confess our need and stop making all the excuses for why we cannot be healed. Jesus gave some very specific actions the man needed to take - 'admit you need healing', 'get up', 'pick up your mat', and 'walk'. Our healing begins with confession - not the list of excuses. Our next actions should reveal we desire the change more than anything else in the world - get up and walk! We may have weak or wobbly steps at first, but when we finally move from our back to our knees, we may just be surprised at just how 'strong' that position make us! Just sayin!

So that's what you are planning!

Be glad for all God is planning for you. Be patient in trouble, and prayerful always. (Romans 12:12)

How many times are we less than delighted with the plans we see being laid out before us? We might be a little 'okay' with them, but in the long run, they aren't what we really 'wanted', so we end up going along with them, but not whole-heartedly. God isn't always going to lay out plans we are going to jump with joy about. Some of the stuff he asks us to walk through will give us an opportunity to develop trust in his direction, while other stuff will be easy-peasy. It is the stuff we walk through that will eventually develop our character and a deeper trust in his ways that we struggle with the most.

Why? It requires us to be patient and that isn't always the easiest reaction to things that give us a little 'trouble' along the way. In fact, we want to either bypass the trouble, or get some kind of instant 'faith boost' to make it through without much effort. Unfortunately, those 'instant faith boosts' don't always come - sometimes we just need to walk through that hard stuff before we really begin to 'feel' or 'appreciate' that our faith has actually been increased. Prayerfulness in the midst of the trouble is always God's recommended plan. It is how we develop the patience to walk it out. 

I have sometimes begun my prayers in those times with complaint - telling God just how 'uncomfortable' I am in the midst of the trouble, how much I want 'out' of it, and what I believe HE should do in order for me to be relieved of it. Ever been there? In rather short order, I usually find God changing those complaints into more of a discussion - showing me where I need a bit of change, how much he is caring for me as I go through the challenge, and what steps to take next. In essence, he is helping me embrace the trouble with less complaint and more trust. How about you? Have you started out with complaint and ended with thankfulness, not really understanding how you got from 'crankiness' to 'joyfulness'?

It is only by God's hand that we walk through those troubles. We can be glad in the midst of troubles, but it may take some honest 'unloading' of our feelings and frustrations before God in prayer to get us to that point. Never be afraid to express yourself to him - he knows what is in your heart, but sometimes he just needs to hear us express it to him. In so doing, we open the door for him to bring peace in the midst of anxiety, hope in the midst of what seems to be unlikely, and freedom when it seems like we are being 'boxed in' by some force beyond our understanding. Just sayin!

Stop, ask, then listen

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. (James 1:5)

How many times do we launch into life's daily activities, then come up against something that kind of bewilders us? It is likely at least once in a while for all of us, but sometimes this happens quite frequently - especially when life seems to be throwing you curve ball after curve ball. Sadly, I think a great many of us attempt to muddle through in our own effort, only stopping to ask for help from God when we get things so messed up that we cannot figure our own way out! We reveal a lot about ourselves by doing so - a lot about our pridefulness, stubbornness, and self-focus!

If we don't know what we are doing, why don't we stop to ask for help? H.G. Wells always said, "If you fell down yesterday, stand up today." How many of us have 'fallen down', attempting to do things without asking for direction or help, only to find ourselves falling down again and again as we repeatedly face the same hurdle? How much wiser would it be to just 'stop', 'ask', and 'listen'? I didn't say it would be easier, because when we have to actually go through the process of asking and listening, it requires us to STOP. Whatever it is, we have to STOP, ask, and then listen - that means we don't take a step forward until we have sought the direction we are to take.

I think we want to make good decisions, but we don't like to admit we need the wisdom of Christ to make them. We need only look as far as the Book of Proverbs to find repeated instruction in how to move - when to move, how to move, and when it is wiser to just not move at all. We have wisdom at our disposal, but do we STOP long enough to consider it? As we explored yesterday, we have to ask honestly - not with only 'half-truths' or 'insinuations' of our real need. When we are vulnerable like that, God can answer us with the wisdom we really need to work through the problems at hand. We will only 'stand up' today because we stopped long enough to learn from yesterday's mistakes and missteps. Just sayin!

Head held high

Okay, I would like us to get a little honest with ourselves and each other this morning. Just how many of us have wanted God to deal with those who stand against us in some form or fashion? It is not unusual to actually converse with God, telling him how much we need him to 'deal with it' as we open up in our frustration, fear, or even anger about how someone is treating us or others. At the same time, God hopes we will allow him to use us in the lives of others - even when they are kind of 'pickles' to deal with! Being perfectly honest here, I actually EXPECT God to help me live my life well - even when what I want isn't perfectly aligned, I EXPECT him to help me get right alignment before I go too far in the wrong direction. Why can I EXPECT this of God? He loves me! His grace has changed my course many times in the past, just because of his love!

Let the fast-talking tricksters be exposed as frauds; they tried to sell me a bill of goods, but I kept my mind fixed on your counsel. Let those who fear you turn to me for evidence of your wise guidance.
And let me live whole and holy, soul and body, so I can always walk with my head held high.
(Psalm 119:78-80)

According to our psalmist, he was dealing with fast-talking tricksters who tried to sell him a bill of goods. When we are encountered by someone "selling a bill of goods" we usually see that we have one of two choices: accept what they say at face-value, or reject it based on what we see. In truth, we have a third choice: investigate it for truth rather than trusting the face-value! When someone is trying to sell us a bill of goods, they are attempting to have us accept something that is untrue or is of little value to us. Investigating 'under the hood' often reveals a little bit of a 'bitter lemon', if you get my drift! When our life has been exposed to this kind of "trickery" and it is not unusual to want God to expose the lack of truth in the bill of goods our enemies have been trying to pass off as true.

We often are exposed to these kinds of "schemes" in life these days. Just think back to the last set of TV commercials or printed advertisements you encountered. How about that immediate release of stains with a generous application of this or that magic cleaner - did you ever try one of those products only to find the stain was still there? A promise of teeth bright enough to signal men in outer space with the simple application of a tiny strip - did you really think fifty years of tea stains could be removed in one simple application? The list could go on and on. You get my point. The fast-talking tricksters WILL be exposed for their 'untruths' - their trickery is God's business to expose, not ours. We "deal" with their trickery by having an accurate "test" whereby to "filter" their claims - - the counsel of God (his Word).

God will use our life to touch the lives of others. Do you and I have a desire to be a living "testimony" of what God does when he has complete access to a life? When our prayers begin to turn to an examination of ourselves, God is then free to begin to move within us in a way that changes our lives in a positive manner. God is always working to create evidence of truth deep within our internal framework. In turn, when we ask God to use that evidence to give both assurance and hope to those who will turn to him in search of the reality they cannot find elsewhere, God is honored. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking God to make your life an open declaration of all that God has been doing within your life!

Think about the 'bravery' or 'courage' it takes to ask God expose the work he is doing in us. I don't know about you, but anytime I get to the part where I think God might just expose what has been going on in my life, I get a little nervous! Why is that? I think it might be the fact we are not always comfortable with others knowing our struggles - it is one thing for God to know them, but to open up about them to anyone else is kind of scary. If others see that we struggle inwardly with some of this stuff, they see us as human! Really all God wants of us if for us to want others to see the reality of what God can do when a heart is perfectly yielded to his care. There is nothing shameful in exposure when God does the work of exposing!

It isn't wrong to pray for yourself. This is not a selfish prayer in any respect. We are really asking God to "cement" the work he has been doing so that he need not be ashamed of our behavior at any point in our day. When we ask God to let us live whole and holy, soul and body, so we can always walk with our head held high, we're beginning the process of yielding. We need to be willing to submit mind, will, emotions, and spirit to the care of God - - giving up the need to be in control of self. This is a prayer God delights in answering. In fact, when we see this prayer coupled with the other two, we understand the importance.

I don't know if you are dealing with fast-talking tricksters today, but if you find that your path is riddled with their schemes, take them to God. He has both the "filter" by which you can evaluate their claims and the ability to silence them with evidence beyond argument! If you have been struggling with something you just don't think God will ever use, don't be surprised when God urges you to allow him to make it a testimony of his power and grace. When he urges, he also empowers. Walking with head held high is God's greatest honor. When he sees us yielded, engaged in this walk we call Christianity, he is honored greatly. Just sayin!