Category: hope

May 20

Are you fearless because you fear less?

 

Any fears flooding your thoughts these days? Reading on-line obituaries to see who died from COVID-19? Scrolling Facebook to read the latest thing to worry about?

After my cancer diagnosis in 1990, every night I’d look in the local paper to see if someone I had treatment with had died or how many people listed had died from cancer. It was a depressing ritual, but one I found hard to break. I guess it was part of those early days when I let cancer consume my thoughts.

And thank goodness I had cancer “in the olden days” as I like to call them when I didn’t have Internet access in my home or at my fingertips on a mobile device. I’m pretty sure that vast amount of Web information would have made me feel even more overwhelmed. (I just Googled “colon cancer” and got 174 MILLION hits!)

Don’t misunderstand, I’m thrilled at all the information—and encouragement—that is available on the Web, but a good question to ask yourself after your on-line time is: Do I feel better or worse after what I’ve just read? If information makes you feel more equipped to fight cancer or the pandemic or whatever trial you’re facing these days, then search away! But if reading makes you feel overwhelmed or depressed or fearful, please don’t keep putting such stuff into your head–especially since not all of it is entirely accurate.

Instead, I would encourage you to fill your mind with the truth that the God who began creation by simply speaking words is a lot more powerful than any possible misguided cells within our bodies. He’s a lot more trustworthy than any statistics in a medical journal and way more knowledgable than anyone’s dire predictions.

So stop feeding your mind with a voice of fear and instead allow a strengthening fear to fill your being. I’m talking about the fear of the Lord.

It’s not a “fall down and shake because you’re afraid of getting zapped” kind of fear. It’s a Wow! kind, where you’re in awe and amazement and wonder and reverence of God because of what He has done and still can do.

It’s this “fear” that I have discovered reduces all the other fears.

I love how Psalm 112 describes us “fear-filled” people:

Happy are those who fear the Lord.
Yes, happy are those who delight in doing what he commands. . . .
When darkness overtakes the godly, light will come bursting in.
They are generous, compassionate, and righteous. . . .
They do not fear bad news;
they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.
They are confident and fearless
and can face foes triumphantly. Psalm 112:1,4,7-8

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah explained how he, too, learned to have the right kind of fear after God warned him that his country was going to be invaded.

The Lord has said to me in the strongest terms: “Do not think like everyone else does. Do not be afraid that some plan conceived behind closed doors will be the end of you. Do not fear anything except the Lord Almighty. He alone is the Holy One. If you fear him, you need fear nothing else. He will keep you safe.” Isaiah 8:11-14

I don’t know about you, but that’s one voice of fear I always want to hear because it makes me fearless and able to fear less.

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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video “Oh My Soul” by Casting Crowns

 

Apr 22

5 Ways a Pandemic Is Like Having Cancer

 

When this novel coronavirus invaded our globe, it was such a stark reminder of my long-ago cancer diagnosis that I actually said to myself: Now everyone will see how it feels to have your world fall apart right before your eyes.

For the past thirty years, my life has been divided into B.C. (Before Cancer) and A.C. (After Cancer) and now yours is too: Before COVID-19 and After COVID-19.

In 1990 when my 36-year-old world was rocked with stage 3 cancer, my pastor-husband was nearly paralyzed with fear that he would bury yet-another wife. Our little girls, ages 8, 10 and 12, tried to adjust to a bunch of babysitters and a mommy who either was lying on the couch or puking in the bathroom. I took a leave of absence from my newspaper reporter job and got replacements for my many volunteer church positions.

All the busyness of our happy home came to a screeching halt as we focused on defeating this unwelcome intruder.

 So here are 5 ways today’s pandemic reminds me of that cancer diagnosis (and don’t miss the last and most important one!)

NO GUARANTEES—I remember thinking that it would be much easier to go through the pain and anxiety of weekly chemo treatments for a year if I knew they definitely would cure me. But there was no such guarantee—only the sobering fact that I had about a 40-percent chance of surviving. (Wouldn’t you like some guarantees regarding all your virus precautions?)

NO PLANS—Friends would ask if I wanted to go somewhere or do something on a certain day, but I couldn’t make definite plans because I couldn’t predict how I would be feeling. People tried to encourage me by saying things like “Just take it one day at a time.” Honestly, there were days when I was just trying to get through the next hour or even the next five minutes. (Wouldn’t it be nice to have definite dates to travel, go out to dinner, get a hair cut?)

NO PEACE—Thoughts of cancer, my uncertain future and plenty of what-ifs filled my mind each day (and night!) I knew it wasn’t good to worry, so I worried that I worried too much! (Don’t you wish you didn’t think about COVID-19 every single day?)

NO NORMALCY—How I longed for life to return to normal. I just wanted my happy B.C. life back. And deep down inside I wondered if that ever would really happen. (Don’t you yearn to turn back the clock on social distancing and disinfecting everything?)

But there is one more “NO” which links these trying circumstances and it is the most important one:

NO DENYING GOD’S FAITHFULNESS—Because my life felt out-of-control, it brought me to my knees. And as I lifted to God my empty hands, my tear-filled eyes and my aching heart, He poured His promises, His power, and His peace into my life.

In 1995 on the fifth anniversary of my cancer surgery, I wrote a poem which is just as relevant today:

When your world is crashing down around you, trust Him.
When what is unfolding doesn’t make sense, trust Him.
When you see no light at the end of the tunnel, trust Him.
When your silent tears spill down, trust Him.
When the pain refuses to subside, trust Him.
When your heart screams, “Why?” trust Him.
When you have more questions than answers, trust Him.
When the devil tells you otherwise, trust Him.
When it’s the last thing you feel like doing, trust Him.
When there’s simply nothing else to do, trust Him.

Copyright 2002 by Lynn Eib.
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View this blog in your browser to play the music video below, “Rescue” by Lauren Daigle.

 

 

Apr 09

What do you need today?

 

Why do you have needs? Why do you need shelter or food? Why do you need emotional connections with other people? Why do you need to feel a sense of purpose?

You have needs because God created you with needs. He could have made you so that your shelter is on your back, as He did the turtle. He could have made you so that you could live a solitary, isolated life. But instead, He made you with needs. The reason is so that your needs could be His entry points. Your needs will point you to His supply.

The Father wants to meet your needs. He encourages you to look to Him to supply every need that arises. He takes pleasure in supplying you with everything you need.

Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11)

“Meet today’s needs,” Jesus taught us to pray. “Whatever arises today, Father I look to you for provision.”

I hear the Father whisper to me, “Nothing will come into your life today for which I have not already put provision in place. Just be alert and watchful. Look to Me first, I will point you to the supply.”

What an adventure it is to live this way! How it frees me from anxiety and frustration! I am learning that everything, from the major to the mundane, has been provided for by my Father. As needs arise from day to day, instead of asking, “Father, do something!” I just say, “Father, what have You already done? Where will I discover the answer You have provided?”

Please understand, God does not meet every need in the way that seems convenient to me. If that were my measuring stick, then I would often be frustrated. But if I have given myself to Him as a living offering, then I am open for Him to meet my needs in ways that will further my understanding of Him or advance His kingdom. You will only live in a state of blessedness when you have aligned yourself  with His will, so that your desire is to know Him at deeper and deeper levels.

If your motivating force is to get God to perform for you–to see Him bring about your agenda–you will not find the blessedness that Jesus offers. Often, what seems an inconvenience to me puts me on the path to an encounter the Lord has arranged for me. Or, something that throws off my schedule actually provides me with information I needed–sometimes before I know I needed it.

Sometimes God waits for you to ask, because until you see your need, you will not recognize His supply. He waits until you have come to the end of your own resources. He waits for you to turn to Him as the one and only source.

Blessedness comes in trusting His love for you and His wisdom. Peace is yours when you know that He will never withhold from you something that would truly make your life more complete.

Today’s blog is an excerpt from Set Apart: a 6-week study of the beatitudes by Jennifer Kennedy Dean, pp. 160-162. Copyright (c) 201. New Hope Publishers. Used with permission.

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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video below, “The Lord’s Prayer” by then 13-year-old Jackie Evancho https://youtu.be/qayluuujauM

 

Mar 18

Where’s God when I really need Him?

Why doesn’t God keep little children from getting cancer?

Why didn’t God protect that family from the drunk driver?

Why did my friend have to bury yet-another spouse?

Why did God allow……………..you fill in the blanks.

We sometimes struggle with not sensing God’s nearness, not feeling His presence or not seeing His power in the way we had hoped. If you’ve ever agonizingly cried out “Where are you, God?” you know exactly what I mean.

I certainly would never attempt to explain all God’s actions (or perceived inactions), but I do believe there are spiritual truths which can help in those desperation times.

One of these truths is gleaned from Joshua 3* as the Israelites prepared to cross the Jordan River into the land God promised them:

“So the people left their camp to cross the Jordan, and the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them.  It was the harvest season, and the Jordan was overflowing its banks. But as soon as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge,  the water above that point began backing up a great distance away at a town called Adam, which is near Zarethan. And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was dry. Then all the people crossed over near the town of Jericho.”

Can you picture the one- to two- million people biblical scholars estimate stood at the river’s edge? As they watched the river overflow its banks, I can only only imagine their desperate thoughts: OK, God, where are you? We’re all going to die here!

But God didn’t push back the water right in front of His people. Instead He was working upstream at a town called Adam (estimated by scholars to be almost 20 miles away). That’s where the water backed up and allowed all those millions to walk across downstream on dry land.

I love how my pastor Brian Jones discusses this “upstream” phenomena in his book Second Guessing God:  Hanging on When You Can’t See His Plan:

“Where’s God? Whenever we face a problem in our lives—sickness, job loss, depression, tragedy, or discouragement—God is at work upstream in those situations, beyond our line of sight. The only thing the Israelites could see was the problem right in front of them. They could have concluded that since the raging river was there, God wasn’t actively involved in their situation, but they would have been wrong. He was there; they just couldn’t see him at work.”

Are you having trouble seeing God at work in your life or in the life of someone you love? Those are the times we all need to trust that our heavenly Father hears, cares and is at work……..upstream.
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*This insight about God working upstream is not original as I have read several authors/speakers who have shared it.

Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video below, “Way Maker” with Michael W. Smith.

 

Mar 04

Longing for Home

Our world could use some good news couldn’t it? In many ways it’s a frightening time in which to be living; wars, rumors of wars, the constant threat of terrorism, violence in the classrooms, families torn apart by abuse and divorce, and so many friends and relatives with cancer. Life is not only hard; it’s often downright unfair, as some people seem to have more than their share of troubles. You might even be one of those people.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we lived in a world where everything was fair and people didn’t get sick, and sad things didn’t happen, and nobody had to die?

Did you ever wonder why there’s a longing in each of us for just such a kind of place? It’s a longing for home, you know. A longing for our real home. You see, we weren’t created to live in California or New York or anywhere else on this planet. We were created for our real home: Heaven.

The Bible describes Heaven in Revelation 21:4 as a place where God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.”

And why won’t there be any more tears or death or sorrow or pain? Not because we’ll have all the money we ever wanted or all the fame or all the knowledge or any other tangible item.

It’s because we’ll have God Himself.

In Revelation 21:3, the verse right before the one about no more tears, it says: “Look! God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them and they will be his people.”

That’s why there won’t be any more tears or pain or death. We’ll have what we always really needed to be whole—the constant presence of God Himself.

The great 17th-century philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote that inside each person is a “God-shaped vacuum.” There’s a hole, so to speak, in our hearts which leaves us longing for something more than this world has to offer. It’s a hole and a longing that God put in us when He created us. He knows only He can fill that hole even though we try to fill it ourselves with all sorts of things. Buying “stuff.” Relationships. Work. Sports. Learning. Religious rituals. Some even try things like food, sex, drugs or alcohol. But none of these can fill the God-shaped vacuum in us…instead they only make it bigger.

The only thing that fills that hole and makes us whole is when God fills it with Himself by putting His very Spirit inside us, one life at a time.

That’s right.  We find true joy, true fulfillment when we realize there’s Someone bigger than us. Someone greater than us. Someone worthy of every bit of praise we can give. We were created to praise God with our lips…and our lives.

And when we do, we experience a peace that hardly can be described. It’s a feeling that reminds us this world is not where we belong and that one day our longing for our real Home will be satisfied.

(Be sure to open this in your browser to enjoy the music video below “There Will Be a Day” by Jeremy Camp.)