Remain Calm

Here's a picture of my beloved cat Spunky.  Those of you that knew him knew he was anything but calm, cool and collected.  It just wasn't his personality.  He had his moments though when he was calm.  As you can see in the pic those moments were usually when he was sleeping.

 

Now this blog post isn't really about pets or sleeping (I just like any excuse to put in a cute pet picture).  It is, however, about remaining calm.  You see, whether you want to admit it or not, each and every one of us is in a spiritual battle.  It's vitally important we remain calm in order to be effective warriors.

Imagine you're on God's football team and the opposing team is, you guessed it, the devil's.  You're eager to get out there and play but, frankly, you're a little out of shape. You go on a strict strengthening regimen.  You're making progress and gain some strength but try as you might you've still got weaknesses that can be exploited.

The coach (God) tries to reassure you that you're still a valuable member of the team - that training is a growth process.  He tries to give you wisdom -  to tell you that sometimes strategy is more important than braun. Sadly you don't hear a thing He says.  You're so frustrated and angry at your failure to get stronger that's all you can think about.

You'll go out on the field because you don't have a choice.  The game goes on.  But even though the clock hasn't started you've already been defeated.  Instead of learning how to compete against the other team - you've been competing against yourself.

We all have sins we struggle against.  Sometimes they're pretty easy to overcome.  Other times conquering them is a life-long process.  The devil knows our weaknesses.  He is relentless in his attacks.  If we remain calm in the battle, we'll be able to hear God's direction - His reassurance and His wisdom for overcoming our sin.  But if we get all riled up at the wrong thing (our failure) we lose sight of the main battle. 

The way I see it the devil gets two for the price of one.  He attacks us with our sin struggle and then gets a bonus of confidence bashing.  There are many instances in the Bible where God's chosen warriors could have lost it emotionally because they didn't have "Super Christian" strength.  David, Joshua and Gideon come immediately to mind. They weren't perfect or sinless and neither are you.

Take it easy on yourself.  Remember always that you're a work in progress.  Eventually you will overcome your battles or your strongholds. But you can't do it if you're busy being angry at yourself.  Remain calm.  Don't give the devil the satisfaction of getting you off your game.

The Problem With "What if"

The other day I was praying about a situation and realized I'd been holding on to some "worry poison" as I like to call it.  Yep, I drank the poison which found a cozy little spot in my body to call home gradually oozing out its nastiness over time.  I know it doesn't make for a pretty picture but sometimes the truth isn't pretty.  Worry is poison and it does damage to, not only your spirit, but your body as well.

The particular worry poison I took this time came in the form of a "What if?" pill.  There I was again worrying about the future.  You've been there too, haven't you?  "What if this happens?"  What if I make a mistake?"

The logical person inside of me says: "Duh! It's dumb to worry about things that may not even happen."  Sadly, my body isn't always controlled by that logical person.  Instead the emotional person inside of me says "Ooh! Let's go on a roller coaster ride."  (Only it turns out there are no safety harnesses installed.)  I fall for this trick every time.   

As I was praying something profound occurred to me.  (True - it actually did.)  I pictured making my decision and then what would happen if a year down the road I discovered it was a mistake? What then? Would I pull that worry poison out of my body, display it before God and say "See, I was right to hold onto this!  You wanted me to let go of my fears but I knew better.  I knew I'd need this eventually. My fear in this has been completely justified."

Then I thought, what does this worry poison really gain me?  If my decision turns out not to be a mistake, then poison is taking up a place in my body that could be filled with Godly things (like love, joy, peace...).  And if the decision turns out to be a mistake?  Does it help me to be right?  Does it make the mistake go away?  Does it help to tell God "I told you so!"?  Does it make me more receptive to God's grace? No, it doesn't do anything for me but allow me some righteous (or unrighteous) indignation.

My take-away is this:  Do your best to make wise decisions.  Pray about them before you make them.  But once you make your decision, commit to it, and go forward in faith.  Believe firmly that no matter what happens, God is with you and will always be with you even if things don't turn out like you thought.  Holding on to the worry poison only trains your eyes to look for the failures instead of seeing how God graciously gets you through what is, in effect, the bumpy road called life. There's no upside to worry.  Free yourself and get rid of it.

Sunday Blogvotional: Finding Peace

Have you ever been in this situation? The roads are icy and visibility is limited.  The little you can see reveals a whole lot of cars spun out on the side of the road.  Things seem pretty dim and scary but the driver sitting beside you is someone you completely trust. There's a long, icy road in front of you and you could be freaking out.  But you know you are safely in your driver's hands. You have peace in this because you're confident in his or her abilities to get you to your destination. 

Do you react differently when you go through the storms of life?  Do you freak out, worry, become tense because you don't trust the driver of your life?  Do the waves of your sea of life toss you around making you uneasy and taking away your peace?  Or do you trust the author of your life to get you through the storm and safely into the next chapter?

Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!" He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
Matthew 8:24-26

   
The apostles in the above passage were afraid because they didn't yet fully understand who Jesus was.  Peace comes from knowing God.  Knowing God comes from spending time with Him.  Read His truths - His promises. You will see His immense love for you and His control in every situation.  Talk to Him.  The closer you communicate with Him the more you will know the One who is your God, your Father, your Friend, your Protector, and your Comforter. 
  
Encouragement for the week:  It may be hard to let go of our fears and trust God completely. But the peace we have of trusting God far outweighs being consumed by fear.   Remember next time you start to worry - open His Word and talk to Him.  His peace will come to you.

How Well Do We Trust God?

It's hard to learn to trust God when we don't give Him the opportunity to show His faithfulness.  How many times have you encountered a crisis, prayed to God for answers or help, then proceeded to deal with the problem on your own?  It's a very common problem that can lead to an even bigger problem. 

When we encounter a crisis and we're not grounded in our trust in God our fear and frustrations can take over and we react out of those emotions.  We get impatient for God to work.  We want our problem solved ASAP.  And as you may have noticed, God doesn't always time things the way we'd like Him to. So we try to solve our problems in our own time. 

All we really want is resolution and peace. And yes - sometimes when we take things into our own hands and get that quick resolution we think we feel peace.  But, the truth is, it's not peace we get - it's relief masquerading as peace.  True peace comes from waiting on God and trusting Him.

If we continue to respond to situations out of our impatience, over time our trust and faith in God diminishes.  Why? Because we haven't seen Him work in our lives for awhile.  He seems absent.  The problem isn't that He's absent - it's usually that we're impatient, we've ignored Him and we don't trust Him to work out the situation.

If we don't allow God the time and opportunity to work in our lives, how will we ever witness His faithfulness?  And if we don't see His faithfulness, how will we ever see and feel His loving hand upon us?  And that loving hand is where true peace comes from.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him and I am helped.  Psalm 28:7

We wait in hope for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. Psalm 33:20,21

Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord have never forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10

Blessings In The Detours

I’m not particularly crazy about detours.  They’re known for being lengthy and slow going.  I like taking the path I’ve planned out and the one I know will get me to my destination with the simplest ease.  Plus I’m usually on a time schedule and detours have a tendency to slow down my trip.  

The truth is we don’t have much control over whether we have to take a detour or not.  Things happen to the road. Repairs need to be made. Sometimes a new road has to be created altogether. 

This scenario is the same in our lives.  We have our lives planned out pretty much since we’re teenagers if not before.  But our lives are full of detours – those unexpected side trips.  Sometimes we encounter detours as a result of decisions we’ve made.  Sometimes we hit a detour through no fault of our own.  Either way they usually throw us for a loop.  

Detours can be muddy, uncomfortable and lengthy.  And unlike detours on a road our life detours tend to be poorly marked.  A lot of times we don’t even know if we’re going the right direction.  This leads to anxiety and stress.  (Unless you’re one of those people who can simply enjoy the ride.)

My own life plan has hit several detours along the way.  Once the initial panic wears off, I eventually remember God is in control and steering.  Like I said – I’m not particularly crazy about detours.  I like knowing my destination and exactly how I’m going to get there.  And I’m especially not big on delays.  But as I look back at all those detours I’ve encountered, I’m able to see the unexpected blessings that came through them.

The funny thing is – we think they are detours when maybe they’re actually the roads God intended for us to take all along.  The roads may not be pleasant that we need to travel but I fully believe they lead to a fuller, more blessed life.  God has an amazing way of turning a chaotic path into a beautiful blessing.

Growing Fruit

We, as Christians, are tremendously blessed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.  In Galatians chapter 5 we read that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

For many years I assumed these characteristics (this fruit) would naturally and abundantly flow out of me simply because I carried the name of Christian.  I was puzzled by the lack of them at times.  Like most people I’m not always loving or patient or gentle, etc. etc.  I mean really, we all have our moments.  

I got to thinking about the word “fruit” and how fruit grows.  A tree will produce fruit if it’s watered, gets light, and has good soil.  If a tree doesn’t get these things – isn’t nurtured – then it will cease to produce good fruit and will eventually die.

What if we are like that tree?  We have been given a gift of a "starter" batch of Spiritual fruit (love, joy, peace…) and a purpose to bear more fruit.  But what happens if we don’t nurture our tree – if we don’t feed our fruit?  Will our fruit shrivel up?  Will it become tasteless and bitter?  Will our tree die? I think maybe it will.  Have you ever met Christians who seem completely void of any Spiritual fruit?  Maybe, just maybe, they've forgotten to nurture their fruit and now it no longer grows (or flows through them).

So how do we nurture our “fruit of the Spirit”?  We nurture by practicing or using them.  The more we practice the act of loving – the more love we grow.  The more we practice patience, gentleness, self-control and the others – the more these too will grow.  And the more of these fruit we have on our tree, the more we are filled with the Spirit and the fuller our lives will be.

Challenge:  Practice nurturing a fruit a week.  This week work on being more loving.  Next week work on being joyful and the next peace, etc.  Oftentimes our attitudes and actions just need a little focused attention and nurturing.

The Trouble With Anger

I didn’t catch the news until late in the day yesterday.  When I did I heard the sad news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  Such senseless violence in my eyes.  Although I wonder if the person or persons who carried out this horrible act thought it was senseless.  Probably not.  Anger tends to have its roots in reason.  Sadly if given the opportunity anger can morph into something beyond reason and rationality.

It got me thinking – wondering how someone can have so much hate inside of them that it leads them to kill people who don’t have anything to do with the core of their hate.  Innocent victims.  Tell me that and eight year old child deserved their wrath or any of the victims for that matter.

As I thought more about this tragedy the reality is this: anger feeds anger and then gives birth to hatred.  Who of us hasn’t become angry?  Have you ever caught yourself hanging on to situations, having angry conversations with someone in your mind, or felt the need to share your anger with mutual friends.  There is something instinctive inside of us that wants to feed on the negativity - the poison.

 

For the vast majority of us, our anger may not get out of hand but it does take up valuable space in our hearts and minds.  A situation occurred recently that has me a little perturbed.  And yes, the human nature side of me wants desperately to be snide – to involve others in my annoyance.  But the Holy Spirit in me is telling me to let it go.  He’s telling me that by wanting others to be as annoyed or angry as I am, I would merely be feeding the anger.  I would be fanning the flame and creating a bigger problem (but misery loves company, right?).  In reality I would be doing the devil’s handy work.  

I admit, it gets hard to change the path my mind takes when I get angry.  But experience has taught me to redirect my thoughts – to turn away from the negative.  Praising God is a good method of redirection and reading His word is a good antidote for the disease.   We may have to fight human nature but I’m pretty sure that if more of us did – we’d have a lot fewer tragedies like what happened in Boston.  

Here is my take away:  Decide whether you want to be an angry person or not.  You can choose to feed on love or choose to feed on anger.  Only one of those has a good outcome.