Remember That?

Everyone has had the experience of a smell or sound bringing an unexpected and "long forgotten" memory unbidden to the surface of your mind. "Where did that come from?" you wonder.

If it's a good memory, you smile fondly trying to savor the experience as long as you can. If it's a negative memory, you try to push it down and suppress the emotions that go with it.

We would all prefer to have selective memory, but it doesn't work that way. We get the good with the bad. Neuroscience tells us that there are two parts to memory: The first part is an actual recording of the event, which occurs in one area of your brain, and the second part is the emotional reactions that go with that recording, happening in a nearby, but separate, area. 

All memories have emotions attached to them. Sometimes memories have such strong emotions that they can have physiological reactions, for instance, your heart beating faster or sweaty palms when you recall something that has made you anxious.

As is true with most of life, the negative seems to affect us more than the positive, and it takes no effort for negative emotions connected to memories to come to the surface, such as anger, shame, guilt, anxiety and bitterness. Interestingly, these emotions can be as strong or stronger at a later time as were when the event happened, nearly taking on an entire existence of their own.

How memories affect us today

Can a memory of something that happened 25 years ago still affect a person's life dramatically? Recently I watched a television show out of Great Britain where a number of people who had experienced negative pasts talked about how memories were still affecting them. One person was an emergency responder, one was a police officer and another retired military from the Iraq war. One woman had been in a car wreck more than a decade ago which caused the death of another person, and another young woman had been sexually abused as a child.

So many of them were still experiencing debilitating emotions that affected their day-to-day lives in varying degrees. Their vacant expressions and lack of joy evidenced that they were still being affected by something from long ago, something that was no longer happening in the present but was deeply affecting their present circumstances.

It would be easy to say, "Just get over it! That happened so long ago; put it behind you," but we can't turn our emotions on and off like that, and memories are something we can't erase.

God must have an answer for this dilemma because He tells us not to be dejected or sad, “for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10, TLB) A sense of guilt and shame will always make us feel “less than”and keep us out of the presence of God, a place where there is fullness of joy.

An unforgettable night

All four gospel stories record an event about one of Jesus' closest followers, which took place after Jesus was betrayed and arrested. Simon Peter, who was one of Jesus' inner circle, follows at a distance into the High Priest’s courtyard where Jesus is being questioned. A servant girl, then others, begin recognizing him as a follower of Jesus, but he denies it, not once but three times. He gets desperate and begins to swear that he never knew Jesus -- the one who had changed his life and shown him only love, grace and mercy.

Earlier when Jesus was predicting his arrest and death, Peter blurted out, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” (Luke 22:33) Jesus knows better, however, and tells him that before the rooster crows twice, he will deny Jesus three times. In Luke’s account of the story, Jesus turns and looks at Peter with the words of betrayal still in his mouth as the rooster is crowing, and Peter goes out and weeps bitter tears.

We may not have denied Jesus to His face, but we all can feel something of what Peter felt at that moment -- letting God down, self-loathing for trying to save our own skin at the expense of someone else, despair about the future. We can well imagine the guilt and condemnation he is feeling -- hating what we have done, hating ourselves and trying to find a way to mask those feelings that seem unbearable to live with.

When Jesus is executed, Peter’s despair must have gotten even deeper. When he hears that three days later Jesus had risen from the dead, any hope about Jesus’ resurrection power must have been tinged with fear and trepidation about how the Master would view him. Would Jesus consider him an unreliable traitor and despise him?

It’s no wonder that people self-medicate with drugs and alcohol or we do other damaging things to ourselves to escape the memories and emotions we hate. This isn’t how we were made us to live. God has a way for Peter to recover from negative experience and become a person that changes history, and He has that for each of us, too.

Changing memories

There have been some interesting new findings into how our brain processes memories. Scientists are learning that every time you bring back a memory to your conscious mind, you can either strengthen it or modify it. It can be 30 years after the event occurred, but science is discovering how the emotional part of the memory can be changed. That is good news!

If we ask God to get involved in that negative memory, to modify the emotions that are involved in it, how could that change our present circumstances?

I read a story of a young man who was going to school full time and driving a school bus to support his family. He was not on his regular route one day, but was a substitute drive for someone else, and although he made the correct stops according to the map, it was different than what the regular driver did. Much to his surprise, the kids began verbally assaulting him and calling him the worst sorts of names. He felt totally humiliated and shaken up, so much so that he wanted to quit his job when he got finished.

Many years later, that memory with all of the pain came up to him while he was in prayer. He asked a simple question to God: "Lord where were You when this happened to me?" That is the right question to ask because even though we may not have known God when bad things happened in our lives, He knew us. And when we acknowledge His presence with us, we will begin to see how He has been at work, even when we didn't know Him!

After this question, the young man saw in his imagination the same scene as the original memory with him in the bus driver seat but, instead of being alone, he saw Jesus Christ standing behind him, taking the barbs and the foul language for him like fiery darts in his back. Jesus took the pain and the sting of the experience for him. When he saw this picture in his imagination, it immediately set him free from the hurt and anger he felt. He could release the pain and no longer have a negative emotional experience, even when he remembered it later.

Peter needed to have a personal encounter with the risen Christ in order to get past his past. The risen Christ gave him a chance to rewrite that horrific chapter in his life by associating different emotions with it.

This story is found in John 21 starting in verse 15. Jesus is having a one-on-one with Peter and asks him a point-blank and relevant question: Peter, do you love me? The word for “love” that Jesus uses is the Greek word agapao, meaning the unconditional love of God. Peter answers, “yes, I love you,” but he uses a different Greek word for love, phileo, which means brotherly affection. It is likely that he is still smarting from his failure to love Jesus a few days earlier, and he doesn't think he can live up to the high standard that Jesus offers.

Jesus doesn't correct him. Instead, He commissions him and affirms him. He tells him to feed his lambs, that is, new believers. Jesus apparently is not holding any resentment against Peter. He gives him forgiveness and entrusts him with God’s people. Jesus not only wanted to replace Peter’s negative emotions, but he wanted to give him positive emotions of love, affirmation and confidence.

He then asks him again using the same word of undeniable commitment and Peter gives the same response. Jesus again commissions him for ministry. He says, you're OK. I accept you. I trust you. I am going to have you feed my sheep.

The third time Jesus asks, the Scripture says that Peter was grieved. The three-fold ask of Jesus no doubt brings up the memory of his three-fold denial of Peter. He doesn’t want to face that memory, but Jesus wants him to no longer fear it but have different thoughts associated with that dark chapter of his past. Jesus wants to take the shame and condemnation out of it, otherwise, Peter is going to be stuck emotionally and not going to be able to fulfill God’s plan for his life.

On this third question, Jesus changes His choice of words and asks, do you phileo me? He comes down to meet Peter on his level and identifies with him. Jesus loves him so much and restores him to dignity and a place of no shame.

Jesus then predicts that Peter will die a martyr's death for his Lord, and will ultimately demonstrate the unconditional for Jesus that Peter didn’t believe himself capable of. Truly, Jesus knows Peter much better than he knows himself and believes in his potential!

Peter went on to have a tremendously fruitful ministry, establishing the early church and writing part of the New Testament. And he does die a death of unconditional love and commitment for God. Because of Jesus bringing love and healing into a bitter memory, Peter is restored and commissioned to serve.

Healing from negative emotions

God wants to do that with each of us. He wants to bring us to a place of no shame and unworthiness, a place of affirmation, a place of wholeness. Here is God’s word for you today: It is not God's will for you to live with negative emotions from past memories. There is healing for you! We don't have to live as victims of the past, whether of our own doing or because of things that have been done to us. We don't have to resign ourselves to live crippled lives emotionally and consider it normal. There is victory for us over shame, guilt, anger, bitterness and self-hatred.

We can bring our damaging memories before God, inviting Him to come into these experiences and show us His truth. Many times negative experiences have lied to us and told us God did not love us or that we are not worth being loved or taken care of. We need God to show us the truth and replace negative emotions with His peace, love and joy. After all, God is the master of changing memories!

For I will be merciful and gracious toward their sins and I will remember their deeds of unrighteousness no more. (Hebrews 8:12, Amplified)

God has changed His memories about us!  He is the only one capable of forgetting our sins, and He wants to come into our lives to restore what has been stolen to us through negative experiences. We can invite Him to do that today.

The God Zone

The great thing about prayer is that it helps us access the “God Zone.”

The God Zone is a place where we see by the eyes of faith, instead of our natural vision. Things look a lot better that way. That’s not a denial of present circumstances as much as it is an ability to see things from a heavenly perspective.

Even if our personal circumstances are looking rosy, the condition of the world, observed from our natural senses, is pretty depressing.

We are afforded heaven’s perspective because “we are seated with Him in the heavenly realms – all because we are one with Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). Our seating with Christ is a fact 24/7, but we become more aware of it as we take a break from the information coming from our natural senses and “see” what God is saying about our lives and our world.

The God Zone also is a place of rest and security. We can let go of anxiety there, if we focus on God’s greatness and His ability to take care of us. (If He is really as great as the Bible says He is, and loves me like the Bible says He does, then what do I have to be worried about? ) When anxiety and insecurity go, joy and peace flood in. I am a lot nicer person once I’ve spent time in the God Zone – just ask my husband or kids!

We can access the God Zone any time we want to, wherever we are, although I’ve found that a regular place and time of prayer is very useful to be purposeful about entering the God Zone. The key ingredient is being transparent with Jesus about what is going on in my heart and not trying to act like everything is cool when it’s not. Only gut-level honest seekers get into the God Zone, because there is nothing phony about God or His kingdom.

The great news is that God wants each of His children to enter there all the time and be refreshed and encouraged by His presence.

Let God Be God

When I was a new believer in Jesus 30 years ago, it seemed like I tried more often than not to tell God how He ought to answer my prayers.

I was roughly six months along in my pregnancy with my first child, when my daughter decided to flip around and was in the wrong positon for the birth. Unless she was returned to the correct position, and quickly, I would be facing a cesarean section.

The doctor gave me exercises to try to get her to turn on her own, which I did diligently, but to no avail.

The doctor then scheduled an external version, where the medical personnel would move the baby around to the correct position by pushing on my belly, while I lay on the bed with my back uncomfortably arched. There was no guarantee that this procedure would be successful, but it would be somewhat painful. I remember asking my small group at church to pray. In my mind, I wanted the baby to turn before the external version would be necessary.

The procedure was scheduled, and all the while I hoped for a miraculous change in her position so I wouldn’t have to go through the procedure. The date for the external version came, and still my daughter was laying the wrong way. Reluctantly I submitted to it – thinking at the time that it was painful, but having no idea about the pain of childbirth that I was soon going to experience! The external version worked, and the nurses afterward told me that they had never seen such a procedure happen so quickly or easily.

You would think I would have been thrilled. I was able to deliver my child naturally a few months later, and God had answered my prayers. In my naïve pride, though, I was disappointed. I wanted God to supernaturally turn the baby without any medical help. I had my terms, and God did not meet them, even though the outcome was ultimately good.

It’s been many years since then and I now look back with embarrassment on my immature faith. How audacious for me to think I could tell God how He should answer my request and what it should look like in order to qualify as an answered prayer in my book.

That’s one reason we want to make sure that when we put our expectation in God, we leave it wide open to Him as to how He wants to deliver our miracle or provide help. Our expectation is not in a prescriptive answer or method. Our expectation is in God’s ultimate goodness, working out His benevolent plan in our lives. We can expect Him to be good to us.

Raising Our Hopes

Positive expectation: That feeling you had as a child on Christmas morning when you woke up and remembered what day it was. It's that wonderful mixture of adrenaline, pleasure, excitement and anticipation of something good that was going to happen to you. It was so real you could almost taste it. 

However, as we grew older, our expectation of good took a sharp downward turn. We experienced disappointment over and over and became wary of getting our hopes up. "Expectation is the root of all heartache," Shakespeare said. "Don't expect things to happen. It is better to be surprised, than to be disappointed," the pessimist tells us. To be truly happy: "Improve your reality, or lower your expectations."

But, is that how God wants us to live? Being cynical and having little expectation of good in order to insulate ourselves from disappointment? Perhaps our problem has been not in expectation itself but in whom or what we put our expectation:

My soul, wait silently for God alone,
For my expectation is from Him.
He only is my rock and my salvation;
He is my defense;
I shall not be moved. (Psalm 62:5-6, NKJV, emphasis added)

Israel's King David certainly had his share of disappointments and crushing despair, especially in his personal life. The context of this psalm is a time of attack and oppression from his enemies, but David remains confident in God's power to help him. Through his experience with God, he knows that the problems around him are not stronger than God's stability, defense and saving power, so he expects God to deliver him completely. 

When you are going through difficulties, do you expect God to help you or do you expect the worst? Do you expect you will have to figure things out on your own and make do with your own resources, or do you expect that God will come through for you with the miracle you need?

Hope is a prevalent theme in the New Testament, and one that is closely linked to our expectancy of God's goodness. Unfortunately, what “hope” means in our everyday vernacular is much different than how the Bible uses this term, so the impact of the message is often lost on us.

In modern speech, we use this word synonymously with "wish for," as in, "I hope it stops raining"; "I hope I can find a parking space close to the entrance to the store"; "I hope my boss gives me a raise."

Usually, there is no expectancy implied that what we hope for will happen. It's a weak, watered-down version of the definition as it is used in the New Testament, which is a pleasurable anticipation or expectation of good.

Using that definition in place of "hope" in the 80-plus verses that it is used in the New Testament could drastically alter how you understand God's desire for you to live. Here is one example:

May the God of expectation fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with expectation by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13, NIV, the word expectation used in place of hope)

God wants our expectation of His goodness to OVERFLOW in our lives. This can only happen through the Holy Spirit's power working in us. He is the God of expectation, not disappointment. If we hang around Him, we will be people of expectation.

If we suffer from a lack of joy and peace in our lives, it might be because we have little expectation of God's goodness. We are filled with joy and peace as we expect HIm to show up and show Himself strong on our behalf.

It's time to raise our hopes high and let God fill them.

Expecting Something Good

Familiarity breeds contempt, the saying goes. I never want that to happen with my relationship with God. After being a Christ-follower for more than 30 years, it's a very real danger because I can finish a verse you start and not even think about what it means.

It's not that I have learned everything there is to know about any topic in the Bible, or even that I am doing most of it. Far from it! It's more a problem of my brain registering familiarity and not taking a deeper look at what God wants to tell me.

The Holy Spirit helps me overcome this problem by giving me provocative definitions about familiar Bible words, usually when I am first waking up in the morning.

This morning, it was the familiar concept of "faith" from the Scriptures. How many messages have I heard (and taught) about that Bible term! But the Holy Spirit, with His laser-like ability to get to the main point, breathed new life into my understanding with this thought: "Faith is nothing more than an expectation that God will be good to you."

I like that. It's simple; it's fresh. As I tried out that definition in some well-known verses, I was amazed at how they popped with new meaning and relevance. See what you think: 

Hearing the word about Christ is designed to bring me expectation that God will be good to me. (Romans 10:17 ESV -- So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ ...)

Bible-reading should not be to build information but to build expectation! Each day when I look at the Scriptures, they can build an expectation in my heart of how good my God is and how good He wants to be to me. There is so much that is wrong going on all around us -- and maybe within us -- that we need to build this expectation daily.

To walk by faith means that I continually expect God to be good to me no matter what I see. (2 Corinthians 5:7 -- for we walk by faith and not by sight ...)

All hell can be breaking loose around me, but if I look past what my senses tell me and rely on the expectation inside about how God wants to be good to me today, right in the midst of the junk, then I can be at peace.

The only way I can please God is to expect Him to be good to me. (Hebrews 11:6 -- But without faith it is impossible to please God...)

This is how much God wants us to expect Him to be good to us -- He will not be pleased with anything less!

My expectation of God being good to me creates something tangible in the spiritual realm that changes what I see. (Hebrews 11:1 -- Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.)

Expectation can be sensed, just as hopelessness and despair can. It permeates the atmosphere, changes my body language, and can be heard in my voice. If i choose to be expectant rather than hopeless, I give God something to work with to bring the answers to my prayers to this earth.

God can help turn my fear into an expectation of good from Him because I know He loves me perfectly. (1 John 4:18 -- Perfect love casts out fear ...)

To be fearful is to expect evil to happen. God wants me to cancel fear through expecting His goodness to happen instead, simply because He loves me.

What all of this means is the end of frustration as I have known it, because to be frustrated means I have stopped expecting God to be good to me. The remedy? The word about Christ, telling me that God is for me, with me, in me and ready to help me.

Heavenly Father, help me to go to Your word and build expectation about Your goodness in my heart, so that I walk by faith all day today. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.

Jesus and the Cross

Contrary to what we might think, Jesus' ministry was not a bed of roses that just went south on the final week of his life. We read about the crowds impressed with the healings and provision and miracles he performed and think how great it would have been to be around Jesus.
But not everybody was giving him high fives or chest bumps and applauding His devotion to follow God.
Here is what a typical month might be like if you were Jesus or one of His followers back then:

• Preach at home church -- congregation gets mad and tries to kill you;
• Church leaders accuse you of blaspheming God and try to stone you to death;
• Religious higher-ups criticize you for eating with the wrong crowd, tell other people you are possessed by demons, and criticize your best friends for not being spiritual enough, especially when it comes to fasting and other church-related activites;
• When you deliver a tormented man who had been possessed by multitudes of demons and had been terrorizing the area, the people of the town are upset and demand that you leave;
• Your cousin in prison doubts that you are who you say you are;
• Your mom and brothers think you have gone crazy and try to get you to stop preaching because they are worried about your mental state;
• The most powerful people in the community are plotting to kill you and are continually setting traps to catch you in what you say so they can turn public opinion against you.

Still wish you could have hung out with Jesus?
Jesus told us that if we want to be his followers, we will deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. (Matthew 16:24)
His sufferings are not car wrecks, cancer or not having enough money to pay our bills. As traumatic as those events are, that is not what Jesus experienced and what he asks us to experience.
He carried a physical cross to Golgatha, but each day of his life, following the direction of his Father, he also carried another cross. This cross was one of misunderstanding and rejection, it was a cross of reproach and alone-ness in obeying God, it was a cross of criticism and wrongful accusation -- all of the things our flesh hates to endure.
Jesus denied what his flesh was telling him to do -- which was avoid rejection and misunderstanding and take the easy way out -- and accepted his cross every day. It was a necessary part of obeying God. Those who choose to follow him will face the same decision. Are we willing to deny the way of conformity to the world and the strong instinct to protect ourselves from hurt, or follow him in carrying our cross?

Totally Invested

Have you ever put yourself in God's shoes?

It's an unusual position to be in, but worth giving it a try.

Recently, I put myself in God's shoes. Having one son out of four children,  I thought about what it would be like if my one and only son had to be sacrificed to save someone else's life. What if, for some unfathomable reason, my child had to spill his blood to save someone's life -- and he freely chose to do that?

I immediately thought of how much I would be interested in what happened to the person for whom the sacrifice was made. How ridiculous to think that we would go our separate ways, with me hoping that everything turned out for the best for him.

The only thing worse than having my son die would be for his death to be in vain.

No, I would be fully invested in seeing this person who was given a new chance at life be successful. I would do everything in my power to make sure his life was fruitful and blessed. I would not be indifferent, now that the ultimate sacrifice had been provided.

In the same way, our heavenly Father is fully invested in our future. He is not indifferent about what happens to us. The ultimate price has been paid. His Son's blood has been shed on our behalf. Father God is going to do everything in His power to make sure we "make it." He is not indifferent about our futures or about the plan He has for our lives. He gave his best so we could have the best -- experiencing everything Jesus Christ died to give us and living a life of fruitfulness and blessing.

That should bring us amazing comfort: Someone has our back, and we have nothing to fear.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32 NIV)

Leaning Into Him

Jesus could say a lot with few words. He made the famous declaration, "Have faith in God," after the disciplies heard him curse a fig tree for being unfruitful.  Not long afterward, they observed the tree withered up from the roots. (Mark 11:23)

Jesus' intent was not to impress them with his jaw-dropping faith exploits, reserved only for the Son of God. "You can have faith like this, too," He seemed to be saying.

My earliest understanding of this command was to see it punitively. "Have faith or else!" I felt pressured to perform. Did I have enough faith? Could I muster up some sort of quasi miracle working-power on my own to accomplish anything for God? Not likely. My faith seemed puny and ineffective, and I was frustrated.

Fast forward beyond several years of sporadic faith failures. I looked for another layer of understanding for this verse. It began to look like an invitation instead of a command. Jesus is offering you and me some of God's own faith -- it is something He is gladly willing to share with us. "Help yourself to some of God's faith!" We can partake if we are interested. God is not stingy, and He is more than eager to help us receive from Him. 

That sounds a lot more like a gracious heavenly Father who wants to ease our burdens and make our yoke light. He is willing to share His miracle-working faith with me to accomplish the impossible.

The invitation gets better. We are invited to take our eyes off of ourselves entirely and what we can accomplish and lean into Him. We are being invited to trust in and rely on Someone supernatural, who can do incredibly more than anything we can ask or imagine. We are asked to put our faith in a Being beyond ourselves and what we can fathom with our senses.

If we take it seriously, such an invitation will relieve any pressure we feel to perrform, not increase it.  I can relax. Somebody very big is in charge of my problems.

Jesus invites us into an intimate relationship with a mind-boggling Creator who is willing to put His power to work on our behalf to unravel our messes and bring creative solutions that no one else could think of or provide.

Have faith in God -- the God of no limits. Let's take Him up on His invitation.

How Sweet the Sound

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

God's grace is sufficient; it's enough for you and me.
What is it enough for?
For whatever you need it to be! Do you need grace to deal with emotions that are erratic, children who are exhausting, a spouse who is unpredictable, a boss who is grouchy?
What about grace for your fears for the future or worries for today? There is plenty to cover every need. 
There is not one area of our lives -- past, present and future -- where God's grace is not sufficient for us.
Sufficient means enough, or, as the Merrriam-Webster Dictionary says: "occurring in such quantity, quality or scope as to fully meet demands, needs or expectations."
God's grace can provide a life where your needs and expectations are fully met every time. That's the kind of grace I want to learn how to access!
The key is that God's power (His grace working on our behalf) is activated through our weakness. Uh-oh. Weaknesses are something we humans don't like to own up to. We like to hide our weaknesses, cover them up, refuse to admit them. That comes naturally to us, but that will frustrate the grace of God on our behalf. Instead, we not only need to admit our weaknesses, we can revel in surrendering areas we have been trying to control. (Did we really think we were in control anyway?) We give up. We say we can't do it, we can't fix it, and we are desperate for help. We reach out to the Creator as a little child in need, trusting that He is there to help us, trusting that He does not find fault with us when we ask Him to pour out grace on us.
We become God-needy instead of self-sufficient.
How many times a day should we look for God's help? As many times as we want grace to cover our lives. If we only want grace in the really tough places, if we only want our needs and expectations fully met at those crises, then only look to God at those times. But if you want a constant flow of God's grace for every moment of your life, then develop a continous looking to Him for His help, His wisdom, His nearness, His friendship.
His strength will be made perfect in your weakness, in your inability or unwillingness to handle life on your own. It is not irresponsible, it is the smartest thing you can do.
God's grace -- how sweet the sound!

Full and Great

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
Slow to anger and great in mercy.
9 The Lord is good to all,
And His tender mercies are over all His works. (Psalm 145:8-9, NKJV)

When I first got serious about meditating the word of God (see my previous post), this is the portion of Scripture that first came to my thoughts. 

• The Lord is gracious -- When I think of someone who is gracious, I think of the perfect gentleman or gentlewoman. A gracious person puts you at ease with his manner. This person smiles at you with kindness and benevolence as though you were the only person in the world. Your comfort and needs being met are that person's top priority. What a picture of our God!
• The Lord is ... full of compassion -- Picture a container filled with water -- there is no room for anything else! Fullness speaks of every available area of space being taken up. It also speaks of the possibility of spilling out, of overflow at the slightest bump. What is our Lord filled with? Compassion. That characteristic speaks of His oneness with our suffering and his yearning to see us relieved of the pain we live in. Certainly it was this compassion that ultimately sent Jesus to the cross to die for us and give us new life. This is the emotion that God has toward us -- in such a degree that He is filled to the brim with compassion to us and ready to overflow at the slightest provocation.
• Slow to anger and great in mercy -- Like a lumbering giant, God's anger is extremely slow to ignite. However, his mercy springs into action at the drop of a hat. What makes God great? What is He known for? His mercy, not his anger. He is defined by his mercy, his love, his forgiveness. He longs to show mercy. He would much prefer to be merciful than to be angry towards anything that He has made. It delights Him to be merciful.
• The Lord is good to all -- The Lord's goodness can't be reserved for only those who deserve it. No, His goodness is to ALL. His goodness has no boundaries and is like the ocean depths, that can't be fathomed. There is so much goodness available to each and every person, with none of God's limitless resources being exhausted.
• His tender mercies are over all His works -- God tenderly cares for all that He has made. He is not negligent about any of His creation, from the most minute particle to his crowning creation, mankind. I love the word "tender" in this passage. As if His mercies were not enough, there is also protective and affectionate tenderness toward us, like a mother toward her child. How can we doubt the love and care of such a God?

Sweet Meditation

I'm convinced that most of the stress we experience in our lives is from trying to live primarily out of our heads rather than out of our spirits, which is the true core of our being. People were not designed to live according to their own finite understanding, and it's exhausing when we try to do so. Decisions that continually come from own limited knowledge will often be flawed and take us in the wrong direction.
All this means that we tend to live stressed out lives trying to fix the messes we've gotten into or figuring out how to stay out of them in the first place!
Unfortunately, I've been schooled very proficiently in figuring things out and relying on my own understanding. If I were to draw a picture comparing the strength and size of my mind and my spirit, my mind would be grossly out of proportion to everything else because it gets so much exercise! It goes and goes and goes, like the Energizer Bunny, and only gets a break when I fall asleep.
On the other hand, my spirit doesn't get nearly as much exercise in a typical day. The Holy Spirit brought this thought to my attention recently, and I was faced with this startling fact: As a new creation in Christ, with my heart indwelt by the Holy Spirit, my spirit contains limitless resources to draw on. Why would I rely so much on my limited understanding and ignore the riches of wisdom residing within me?
Only because I would have to admit I don't know how to access that knowledge consistently. How can I exercise my spirit so I will rely on it more often rather than relying on my own thinking?
Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is our Helper, so when I feel stumped, that's the Person I go to for help. The answer I got was a simple instruction that anyone can do and which can easily fit into any person's schedule. God is so practical! 

Oh, the joys of those who do not
    follow the advice of the wicked,
    or stand around with sinners,
    or join in with mockers.
2 But they delight in the law of the Lord,
    meditating on it day and night.
3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,    and they prosper in all they do. (Psalm 1:1-3 NLT; see also Joshua 1:8)

God's instructions are to meditate on His Word as much as possible, and the promise is to prosper in all that I do. Meditation is not memorizing Scripture or having Bible study. It's not prayer, as good as all of those spiritual disciplines are. It can best be described as savoring the Word of God -- chewing a small piece of it slowly and getting all of the nutrition and nourishment and taste out of it as possible. Just as someone can savor and enjoy a fine wine or a delectable dessert, you can savor and get the most out of what God wants to speak to you each day and make it personally nourshing to you.
I don't want to give you a formula, but I will share how this exercise works for me. In the morning after first awakening, I get into a comfortable position and close my eyes. (Best to do this after being well rested!) I ask the Holy Spirit what He wants to speak to me from His word. I quiet my mind and look inside my heart ... and wait. Before too long, words will float up to my mind. Sometimes they will be a verse I've read -- even from a long time ago -- or sometimes just a phrase.  
I repeat those words to myself several times, letting them roll around in my heart. I am not trying to analyze them or memorize them (that takes too much brain power), just let them say what they need to say to me. During this time I feel as though the Holy Spirit and I are sharing a secret. He is imparting to me things on His heart about the Word of God that He knows I will need for my journey. It is a relaxing time with Him. There is no pressure to perform, no goal I have to meet. My mind gets a much-needed rest, and I can feel my spirit being exercised and gaining strength through use.
It's the easiest, most pain-free, exercise I've ever done! 
Throughout the day, when my mind is free from other things, such as when I am driving, I let my thoughts return to those words. I find it helpful to write them down in a journal to refer to them again. Sometimes I will look up what some of the words mean in the original language in order to get more "food" to meditate on (this is easy to do using internet tools, such as Strong's Concordance). Before I fall asleep at night, I try to repeat my exercise of the morning with these same words from heaven. It's a wonderful way to fall asleep in peace! 
If you have ever gone without food for an extended time and then eaten a delicious meal, you will get an idea of the satisfaction that this type of spiritual exercise brings. For someone who has overworked her brain for so many years, it is a much needed rest that has brought a new level of peace and serenity to my life.  
Isn't it just like our loving Father to make spiritual exercise an absolutely delightful experience?
During the next few weeks, I'll share some verses that I have been meditating on and some of the nourishment I have received while doing so. I invite you to join me. My prayer is that you will begin asking the Holy Spirit how you can meditate in God's Word and enjoy these benefits for yourself!

Without a Doubt

Ever hear the saying, "Doubt and go without"?

I think that Jesus originated that saying. You might recognize it better in context. He said in Mark's Gospel, chapter 11, after cursing the fig tree. "Have faith in God!"

Then:
"I can guarantee this truth: This is what will be done for someone who doesn’t doubt but believes what he says will happen: He can say to this mountain, ‘Be uprooted and thrown into the sea,’ and it will be done for him. That’s why I tell you to have faith that you have already received whatever you pray for, and it will be yours."

A promise that even mountains will obey my words -- wow! That sounds too good to be true. There must be a catch.

There isn't a catch, but for many years, the part of Jesus' words that tripped me up was what He said about doubt. Anytime I tried to believe God's promises and then later experienced thoughts of doubt and fear in my mind, I thought I had lost my faith and gave up on my request. It was discouraging because it seemed I couldn't keep those doubtful thoughts from coming, so I always had to keep starting over in my petitions to God. 

But that is not what Jesus is saying. Another passage about doubt in the book of James (chapter 1) is helpful. James defines doubt as wavering back and forth between two decisions instead of staying fixed on one direction. If you started down a path toward your destination, and then halfway along decided to stop or turn around and go back the way you came, you would never get to where you're supposed to be going.

That's what happens when we start out believing God and then allow doubt to derail us.

The opposite of wavering, then, is to be focused on your goal with determination. Faith means to stay the course, no matter what it looks like, seems like or feels like. It's up to us whether we decide to keep going forward or not.

When it comes to impossibilities happening in our lives, that resolute path means we keep going in the same direction as what we first affirmed, both with our words and our actions. The way we talk and the way we act should be aligned with what we say we believe. Our emotions may be screaming, "It's not working! God didn't hear you!" Our will may want to give up the fight. Our minds may be full of questions. It doesn't matter. We can say, like the Apostle Paul, "None of these things move me." We can focus instead on what God has promised, knowing that He cannot lie, and continue to move in the direction we started without giving up or letting go. 

Faith and doubt, then, are not so much uncontrollable feelings as they are attitudes inside us that determine if we will keep going or if we will draw back.

If we stay on the path of our belief in God's goodness and His promises, eventually those things that we continue to say will come into existence. Our words will be fulfilled.

It cannot be otherwise. Jesus promised.

Many Ways to God?

We've all heard the argument for diversity when it comes to a person's spiritual life: There are many ways to God, people say.

But God Himself put an end to that discussion when Jesus asked in the Garden of Gethsemane, before He was betrayed: "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me ..." (Matthew 26:39)

In other words, Jesus literally begged, "Father, if there's any other way to do this, please don't let this happen to me."

If the only way for me to rescue a person who was ready to perish was for my own child to die, I would be searching frantically for another way to get the job done. I would leave no stone unturned in my quest to spare my child suffering and death.

If the mighty, all-powerful God, who can do anything, said there is no other way to do this -- as He watched His Son sweat great drops of blood in agony -- then there is no other way.

If there was any way God could have kept His Son from dying going to hell, and still erase our sin and bring us to heaven, He would have done it.

But there wasn't any other way.

With Love, From Iloilo, Part 5

On a hot Monday morning, we met up with Mark and Yen Cabag, both natives Filipinos who pastor in Iloilo. I liked the couple immediately. They both had warm smiles, joy exuding out of them mixed with unconditional love and acceptance. They were taking us to the Dorcas House, an orphanage founded about 40 years ago by a Baptist missionary. The Cabages' youngest son, Samuel, whose adoption is being finalized, had been abandoned an an infant before finding his way to Dorcas House where Mark and Yen first met him. He had somehow survived the first two weeks of his life on only the water that rice had been boiled in before receiving love and care at the Dorcas House.

Pastor Mark had not always been interested in fostering or adopting children. The couple already had one son born to them. Then God gave Mark a vivid dream where a boy was floating down a river, in danger of drowning. Mark was able to reach out and rescue him, which left a profound impact on him. The couple decided to begin pursuing adoption of orphans.

Mark and Yen's old van had no air con (as the Filipinos call a/c), but there was a pretty good breeze through the lowered windows as we traveled far out into the countryside. First, though, we stopped at a roadside restaurant that was owned by someone in their congregation. They had called ahead and ordered us authentic Philippine cuisine, including some soup (it was hard to eat soup in such heat!), chicken feet (Zak, of course, tried it), and some halo-halo for dessert, a mixture of shaved ice, evaporated milk and various boiled sweet beans, fruit and cheese. It was a little too many diverse tastes and textures in one place for Jessika and me to enjoy. Zak loved it, although he had to fight off the flies that were contending for our food in our outdoor seating.

We arrived at the orphanage shortly afterward. The pastors had brought snacks for the children, which would help them warm up to the many white people they would be seeing that day. There were six of us Americans in all.

The older children were in school, leaving only the toddlers and babies. Unlike most children I am accustomed to, these children were extremely shy and non-inquisitive. Their passivity told me that they had either been abused or neglected before coming to the orphanage, which Yen confirmed.

I did not want to frighten any of the children, so I didn’t approach them but hoped they would eventually come toward me. For a long time that didn’t look like it would happen, although I got to hold an infant for a bit, until Jessika commandeered him. Finally, after about 90 minutes, one of the 18-month-old twin girls that I had been smiling at, finally got close enough for me to gently scoop her up and hold her. She did not resist. It was time to eat the spaghetti, hotdogs and ice cream that Mark and Yen had brought, so I sat her on my lap at the table to feed her. She didn’t reach out and grab everything within her grasp as you would expect a normal toddler to. She had serious brown eyes, far too big for her face that looked at me solemnly as she slowly slurped up the spaghetti or the ice cream I offered her. I wondered what kind of trauma she and her sister had experienced in their short lives, and I was glad they were getting love and nurture now. I prayed for the right family to come into their lives.

In direct contrast to these children, the kids we saw both at the Sonshine Center and the Hope Center at Calajunan were energetic and warmed up to us immediately. It was refreshing to see children enjoying playtime without phones, iPads or other electronic devices in front of their faces. When we were at the Sonshine Center waiting for the Saturday children’s service to start, they played outside on the swings, in made-up games that needed no equipment, basketball or plain old tag. They were happy children, for the most part, and appreciative as well.

During the service, there was lots of high energy singing and dancing, with everybody sweating buckets. At the teaching time, the 100-plus children sat on the floor with hands in their laps, listening or responding to questions. There were no multi-media presentations, just a simple object lesson from an animated group of teen-age and adult leaders. Children who weren’t paying attention were reminded to do so by the other teens who were on the perimeter “working the crowd.” Any child who didn’t heed their first or second warning to pay attention was taken out of the room for a conversation. The children obviously knew it was a privilege for them to come to the Sonshine Center because they could be asked to not return if they did not cooperate.

Each child left with a bag of rice and a bag of chicken gumbo-type of concoction. They bit a tiny hole in the bottom of the bag to suck the soup. When I tried it, I accidentally bit a hole in two corners and so made a huge mess with chicken soup dripping everywhere. I tried to clean up my mess, but Filipinos don’t believe in paper towels, and the napkins they use for eating are miniscule! It was not a pretty sight for me to wipe up the floor with the little pieces of paper.

Fortunately, we were getting ready to go to the ocean for the youth baptism, so I would soon be able to divest myself of chicken broth that had run down my arms ...

The ever-present Jeepneys took us to the beach where 27 young people were pledging their decision to follow Christ through water baptism.

We enjoyed a home-cooked chicken gumbo meal and then listened to Pastor Brenda, the youth leader, talk to the young people about what baptism means. Both Zak and Jessika got to share their testimonies about their own journeys of coming to Christ, with Zak getting to relate his story of having been baptized only a few months earlier in the States.

Then it was time to go out to the water where the baptismal candidates were immersed one by one by those who had been discipling them. These were teens not much older or the same age as those being baptized. Everyone shouted and clapped as the follower was immersed and came out of the water, smiling happily and praising God. Their joy and excitement was contagious, and Natalie said it must be what heaven is like.

To see photos of the event, go to http://natalieamattes.blogspot.com/.