Out of the pit and into His hand.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.”
 (Psalm 103:2-5, ESV)

  We at times find ourselves in a deep place, mired and overcome by pain, suffering and struggle. These places are dark and foreboding pits of despair, awful with the mire of frustration, difficulty and hopelessness. They hold us in the misery of sadness of the moment with walls slippery and towering around us.  Sometimes we end up in these pits because of our sin. Sin promises delight but it brings despair. Sin is always false, looking like light when it only beings darkness. We at times follow after sin and then become mired in the taunts of guilt that flood our hearts in the pits of our lives. Sometimes we fall into a pit by our stubbornness and failure to obey God or follow His ways. Sometimes we are thrown into a pit because of the sin of others directed at us. At times we may find ourselves in a pit simply because we live in a sinful and fallen world where the deeds of sin, greed, corruption and evil bring pain and despair into the lives of those around them.

     We can even find ourselves in a pit of misery without any reasonable explanations.  Our health or the health of those around us can change in an instant with unexpected upheavals and losses knocking us into a place of struggle and sadness. The normalcy of our living can change at any time from success to failure, from accolades to rejections and from prosperity to poverty and we can find ourselves in a despairing place.  We can be mired down with the weight of disappointment and heartache and the walls of the pit tower above us. Who can rescue us? Who really sees us? Who really cares? Who can reach down to the deep darkness engulfing us? 

      When we are surrounded by the walls of the pit, it is easy to be depressed because we see the height of the walls and the deepness of the pit.  When we call to God from those places, He will come and gracefully lift us from the depths of the pit.  He reaches deep and there is tremendous power in the grace of God.  His hands are extended fully in reaching to the deepest darkness (Psalm 34:18). His hands have a secure and unfailing grip, not only for the moment but for eternity (John 10:28). His hands will tenderly hold us and sustain us with His unfailing love (Isaiah 49:15). God sees you in any pit you find yourself in, He is listening to your cries and He is reaching out to love, comfort and heal you.  Let Him lift you up to rest in His hand.  Come out of the pit and into His hand.

Suggested Reading … Psalm 103

Priorities, releasing and having a Savior as our Lord.

“And behold, one came and said unto Him, ‘Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?’ And He said unto him, ‘Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but One, that is, God. But if thou wilt enter into Life, keep the commandments.’ He said unto Him, ‘Which?’ Jesus said, “‘Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness;honor thy father and thy mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’” The young man said unto Him, ‘All these things have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?’” (Matthew 19:16-20, KJ21)

  We understand in giving precedence to certain aspects or values of our lives, we order our lives regarding importance to one aspect or value above another.  We must do this on a regular basis to have any semblance of order of functioning in our daily living and we must do this with what we value.  We also must give priority in our lives to our most important intimate relationships with spouses, family or friends lest other endless demands with began to dominate our time, taking away devotion and commitment to ones we love.  It seems logical as well that if we claim to be people of faith, then faith must be value that is regarded as a priority in the highest degree.

     Yet giving something priority in our lives involves more than just speaking of it or listing it as a priority.  Claiming anything as a significant priority involves more than words.  Even willingness to invest dedicated time and effort into any given priority does make it a reality as a high precedent in your living.

    Other things must be released in order for spoken or claimed priorities to become realities in our lives. It is in the releasing of the demanding insignificant things that the significant is ordered and elevated to the place of highest significance.  Values are just token phrases unless they upheld by principled and intentioned actions. Faith without the releasing actions of loving, serving and worshipping is empty. Still there is something beyond the adhering to our priorities and the releasing of interferences and demands by our actions.  In the highest place of order, regard and priority, a certain exclusiveness must not only be a priority followed by the releasing all other things from any interference. 

     In marriage, our exclusiveness to our spouses is not just priority borne out in our releasing of all to the one that we love … it is exclusive abandonment of all others and an exclusive attaching to our spouse. In our faith, it is not just a setting of priorities that matters or even the releasing of time and effort that makes good our faith.  There must be an exclusive abandonment of everything else and an exclusive attachment above everything else, in order for Jesus Christ to truly be our Savior and our Lord.  That exclusiveness is what the “Rich Young Ruler” missed in forgoing becoming a follower of Jesus Christ and that exclusiveness is essential in our following Him above all others.   

“Jesus said unto him, ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven; and come and follow Me.’ But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” (Matthew 19:21-22, KJ21)

Suggested Reading … Matthew 19

Looking to Him

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me." (Isaiah 49:15-16, NIV)

  In all of us there is a struggle to know things, to retain experiences and yet peer into the future.  We struggle to ascertain all the facets that make up the way we understand life.  Why do certain things happen to us and why or how are they good or bad? Why do some goals become reality and others remain impossible to attain despite our best efforts?  There is sense in most humans, as we live, that we expect mostly good things and times in our lives.  Non-religious people generally don’t expect negative things to come their way and Christian people expect that somehow inherent in God’s blessing of their lives is an indirect promise to exclude them from bad things and suffering. 

    When people are healthy, have job security and their marriage and family are generally warmly interacting in loving ways, we assume this will be our normal and everyday pattern in our lives.  Sure there are little inconveniences and some stressful times but generally we live expecting little that is earth shattering or terrible to come our way. If there are some shocking upheavals, pending disasters or even tragic losses ahead in our lives, we think we would like to know about them before they were to happen.  On the other side of the spectrum are our anxieties over the situations we tend to imagine as of much greater significance than they actually are. The reality is that we as humans aren’t that great handling the future whether it is real or imagined and although humans can rise up to deal with most occasions of difficulties, we struggle from time to time understanding them.

    The truth remains … we cannot see into the future, we cannot understand the whys of painful occurrences nor do we really know what we really can handle until the difficulty is directly in our path.  As we enter a new year, we at times try to come up with a few resolutions about changing our lifestyles patterns or setting new goals for the coming year. Healthy lifestyle changes, giving up non-essential things, setting new priorities in our lives are good things and it is a good thing to strive to be better and live in healthier ways in any New Year. These are important but the growing in our faith and becoming more like Christ in all our ways and showing His love to all those around us should be our greatest desire.

     Still beyond resolutions is the reality that although we all “see in a mirror dimly” (1Corinthains 13:12) and this is little shaky at times.  Beyond our human condition is the rock solid security of our Shepherd’s love.  In that love we know we are in “etched in God’s palm” (Isaiah 49:16), “redeemed and called by name” (Isaiah 43:1) and “blessed Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). There are literally hundreds of other promises from our God, who is “faithful in all His words and kind in all His works” (Psalm 145:13).   May we see these promises in a living way and cry out to Him when we cannot understand what we are facing (Psalm 142) knowing that “His love endures forever” (Psalm 118).  That is not an iffy New Year’s resolution but an eternal fact. Trust in Him in the new year and trust in Him all your days.

Suggested Reading ... Isaiah 49

The empty manger …

“Who, being in very nature God,  did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8, NIV)

  The manger was full of God’s promise but only for a short time.  The child who brought favor and grace was laid in the manger was the one of the first testaments of God’s gift to all of the world.  In some ways, we understand the manger was part of God’s way of showing the humility of Christ coming amongst but what do we see in the empty manger?

      In simple ways, we understand the Son was the gift of favor and grace and He could not be left in the manger because His purpose was to be found in His living and showing the Kingdom of God. This gift from God as grace was ultimately fulfilled in the giving, dying and rising again of the Son.

     The manger is empty to some because people don’t realize there is a gift in the manger.  They don’t understand the gift is free and available to them.  Instead of reaching out for the gift, they push the gift away. Others mock the manger as empty of value and substance. Some people believe the manger is empty because the manger that held a baby for the world is just a myth and it would be foolish to believe in such a story.  To others the manger is empty because the real event of God redeeming the world through His Son, is unreasonable or nonsensical and they reinvent a more appropriate story to their liking.

     There are other people who would empty the manger of any significance replacing the power of Christmas with their cultural myths of goodness by believing in a magical round man in a red suit. In reality, the power to live a good life and give goodness away, comes from the goodness of God. Our goodness comes He gives the Son as Living Christ through His Spirit to empower us to give His forgiveness, redemption, grace and love to those around us.

     Of course the manger is empty,  because my Lord and Savior didn’t stay in the manger, He went to the cross and rose from the grave.   In fact, every place where Jesus was born and lived is empty of His physical bodily form.  The physical form and presence of Jesus is gone from these places and they are empty, but He is not gone because He has sent His presence and power through the Holy Spirit now comes in far greater ways.  The stable is empty, the manger is empty, the carpenter’s shop is empty, the roads are empty, the boats are empty, the great temple is empty, the cross is empty and the tomb is empty.  In the end of all matters, it is not the emptiness that has meaning but what He did in those empty places and who and where He is now.  Without the empty cross, there is no salvation and without the empty tomb, there is no Holy Spirit.  All of this emptiness is redeemed into salvation and joy in the Living Savior.  He is there at every empty place with the new life He gives to all who believe.

       Yes, the manger is empty but the Christ that first was laid there; now fills every empty place with Himself.  Come to empty manger, the empty cross and the empty tomb and you will find the Living Risen Christ.  The Jesus who came first to a Bethlehem manger; emptied Himself that we might be saved. From the humble stable and manger … empty of respect and honor, He opens the door to the gifts of favor and love He brings through His grace.  It is in the emptying of Christ that we are saved and it is in the emptying of ourselves that we proclaim the Living Christ, able to redeem all emptiness in all people and for all time.

“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7, NIV).