A push in the right direction

We might want to 'walk a straight path', but find ourselves kind of wishy-washy in some way, seeking to find 'happiness' in all those elusive places our mind creates or society touts as the 'answer' for our unhappiness. We don't exactly know how it happens sometimes, but we find ourselves seeking 'happiness' instead of contentment and joy. We find the plans God has for us a bit 'burdensome' because they don't produce 'instant happiness' in our lives. What we need more than anything is to ask God to help us stay the course, walking only in his path that is laid out in his word, and to have our focus changed from the elusive things that only report to bring us happiness, but really leave us quite unfulfilled and seeking something else.

Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found. Give me an eagerness for your laws rather than a love for money! Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word. (Psalm 119:35-37)

If our psalmist asked God to 'make him' walk within his commands, what makes us think we don't need to ask the same thing? We are ALL weak and get wrapped up in the 'things' or 'schemes' that promise us happiness but are only temporary at best. Our eye-gate seems to be the very thing we need God to help us with most of the time. It is what we behold with our eyes that gets our minds to start working, isn't it? We 'see', then we want. We 'see', then we create ideas. We 'see', then we pursue. We need our 'seeing' to be clear and our actions to be wise and that only comes when God is the one who governs both!

The love of any 'thing' in our lives can take our eyes off of God's best for us. It can make us pursue an elusive form of happiness - superficial, unsustainable, and very unwise. Things that promise happiness in this world seldom provide more than a temporary 'fix' for some craving we have. We might want a relationship with someone but pursuing it outside of who God has planned for us to be in relationship with might seem to produce some form of 'happiness', but in the end, it leaves us quite empty and unfilled. 

Make us to walk - we need a little push in the right direction from time to time, don't we? The path of his commands - because what we behold with our eyes isn't always God's best for us. Give us an eagerness for your laws - the boundaries are important, the wisdom found while staying in them is essential. Turn our eyes - because they get drawn into the hype of this world and away from the things God says are important for us to consider and embrace. We need his help to walk upright much more than we need the fulfillment of our happiness, don't we? Just askin...

Deuces or Aces?

The Lord will keep good people safe, but evil people will have many troubles. (Proverbs 12:21)

Josh Billings said, "Life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing those you hold well." We might not always be dealt the 'best hand' in life, but we can 'play the cards' we are dealt to the best of our ability, all the while trusting God with the outcome. We 'hold' certain cards in life, some good while others are not as good. I learned a long time ago it didn't do much good to complain about the hand one receives. It is best to take those 'cards' to Jesus, ask him for the wisdom to 'play them well' and then trust him with the rest.

The Lord will keep good people safe - these words ring true time and time again in our days, even when we don't realize how much 'safety' he has provided along our path. We want a 'clear path', but we don't see what goes into clearing it because God has done all that work ahead of us. We want a smooth path, but we don't realize how many times he has 'leveled it' just for us. We want a quick path, but we don't appreciate how much he has prepared for us to behold along the way. God's plans are not always evident in the 'hand we are dealt', but we can trust that his provision, power, and purpose will be revealed along the way.

When we have troubles, does that mean we are 'evil' as this passage might suggest? No, it just means we live in a crazy, mixed up, fallen world! We will face trials and struggles - that is a given. We don't always find the smooth or easy way in life, but we don't travel that way alone. We have God's presence with us, and he gives us one another to help in that walk. We might think things could be 'simpler', but we don't always 'need' simple - we might just need a little bit of a challenge to help us grow stronger, keeping us on track with Jesus as it does. 

Remember, three aces are good, but four twos are better! We might think we have nothing but 'low cards' in the deal, but with Jesus, the 'low cards' could just be the highest hand! Just sayin!

Gawking at everything?

The Lord sees everything, and he watches us closely. Sinners are trapped and caught by their own evil deeds. They get lost and die because of their foolishness and lack of self-control. (Proverbs 5:21-23 CEV)

None of us can say we watch so closely as to NEVER miss a thing! If I were honest, I would tell you there were times I was watching so closely to see what God would do in a particular circumstance, only to miss him moving somewhere other than where I was focusing! I wasn't looking where he was acting! He focused on another area of my life, but I missed it all together - seeing only the end results, but oblivious to the exact way they happened! We probably are all like this now and again - focusing so intently on one thing and missing where God is moving just a little bit down the road in our lives. Our focus might be too broad. We miss the pothole because we were just gazing at the scenery! Life is a little bit of focusing intently, but not so intently that we cannot see the bigger picture.

When our focus is not correct, we fall into the messy circumstances of life. God has the "bigger picture". He watches us closely - we are part of the "bigger picture" he keeps constantly in his focus. Some may think that God sees everything, so don't get "caught" doing anything wrong. Pursue wisdom - for nothing will guide us in life quite like the pursuit of the person of Christ. Wisdom is found in a person, not in an amassing of knowledge. We pursue Christ, keeping our focus on him, and he will help us to possess the wisdom to make the right choices when the circumstances change, and we need to respond in obedience to his will.

We have been given mothers and fathers to help "raise" us up in the right way we are to live. Even when our "natural" parents weren't all that great, God's provides for what we didn't have in a natural sense - by giving us "spiritual parents" to help us develop this right sense of living. Embrace their advice and listen to their reminders - what you may gain is your life! We have "common sense" to help us in times where a lack of clarity exists. When all else seems to just fall a little short of giving us the full picture, we have this thing known as common sense to guide us. If our conscience and what we know to be true don't disagree, we can move forward because we have used some common sense in making the decision.

We are called to listen and obey. We think we can obey without really listening. We put the cart before the horse if we think obedience can come before really listening to the counsel of God! This is why he asks us to take time with him each day, listen to the wisdom of those he places in our lives, and then to match up what he provides in his Word, times of meditation, and the counsel we have received with what we "know" to be true (common sense). Listen first - then take action. If we'd just get that one lesson down, we'd avoid a whole lot of potholes along the way.

God sees everything and watches us closely. It isn't because he wants to catch us "tripping up", but because he wants us to be successful in our walk with him. The hope does not come in the discovery of the pothole, but in knowing how to avoid it so we don't find ourselves tripped up by our own lack of self-control. Trust the one with the "bigger picture" to guide your path and orchestrate your outcomes, but don't get so caught up in the "scenery" that you lose focus of the path you travel! Just sayin!

Stumbling Toward Ruin?

I am a survivor. Have you heard those words, or seen them proudly worn across the front of a t-shirt announcing some event the wearer has endured and survived? A survivor is one who has 'beaten the odds', coming out on the other side of something they had a hard time enduring. If God is the one who fights with us, helping us with our 'survival skills' in the midst of whatever it is we have been called to endure, then we can be assured that we will come out on the other side. Will we have 'war wounds' of some sort? Probably. We aren't guaranteed to be 'wound free', but we are promised to be 'held together' and 'put perfectly together' in the presence of Jesus.

For people who are stumbling toward ruin, the message of the cross is nothing but a tall tale for fools by a fool. But for those of us who are already experiencing the reality of being rescued and made right, it is nothing short of God’s power. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

There are a great many of us that can proclaim we have been 'redeemed' - made new through the power and grace of God in our lives. We have undergone a process of transforming our hardened hearts into something that resembles and gives back a little bit of the grace we have received. Our 'survival' wasn't our own doing - we played a part in getting into the mess we were in, but the way out of that mess wasn't in our hands alone! God took us to the place where we'd recognize that thing we were struggling to survive within our own power was really going to be our undoing if we continued in that course. In time, we called out for help and acknowledged how foolish it was to attempt to continue in our own self efforts.

There are still others who are aimlessly attempting to 'survive' life. They feel like they have been dealt a bad hand and just have to play the cards they have been handed. They would like to fold and walk away, but they know they can't. Their life is hard - it isn't joy-filled, or even exciting - it is just  one tough day after another. They cannot hold their heads up because the weight upon them is so heavy they are just weighed down. If this is you today, I have a little hope for you - God's forgiveness is what awaits you at the end of that tough road. It isn't far off - it is as close as your lips. It only takes your acknowledging you aren't doing things well - that you need him to step in and change your course.

Look at what the course of the 'challenged'. It is a place of stumbling. There is but one person who can keep us from stumbling - Christ Jesus. We don't avoid everything we could stumble upon in life in our own efforts. That attitude of despair will creep up unless God keeps our heart at peace. The frustration of things continually going in the opposite direction as we would have desired will bring repeated pain until God adjusts our focus to see each frustration through his eyes. He 'frames' those things in a manner that helps us see how those 'frustrating things' are acting to refine us - they are like sandpaper that brings out the beauty of the grain deep within the wood.

Instead of continuing to stumble toward ruin, perhaps it is time to just halt in our path and ask God to turn us toward the place of our victory - to the place in him where will overcome our frustration, set aside our fears, relinquish the need to be constantly controlled by our circumstances. God isn't going to force himself into our 'battle', but he stands ready to help us to become more than just 'survivors' through is power, peace, and presence. We choose to stumble on, or walk strong in him. Just sayin!