Category: peace

Jan 23

Is the wildfire of fear, worry or anxiety burning in your life?


Fear is your enemy’s weapon. He uses it skillfully and often to great effect. Fear and its offshoots–worry and anxiety–are like a wildfire, encroaching on every area of your life and leaving destruction in their wake.


Fear eats its way into your emotions, robbing you of the peace and rest God intends for you. Fear burrows into your relationships and colors your interactions with those you love. Fear robs your body of its vigor, occupies your thoughts, and monopolizes your attention. Fear hijacks your life.

We experience fear when situations and people are not under our control. Fear is a feeling of powerlessness. We can’t control outcomes, events, or people. Anything you can control does not cause fear. As we recognize our vulnerabilities, we begin to fear. It comes naturally to us and puts down deep roots. Unless we guard against it, we grow in fear instead of growing in faith.

When you are experiencing fear in any of its forms, consider fear as an indicator you are trying to carry a burden that is not yours to carry. You are trying to do God’s job for Him. You feel the responsibility for managing the situation, and you inherently know you are not powerful enough. So fear sets in.

Fear is designed to steal every single thing Jesus wants to give you. Fear targets joy and peace like a heat-seeking missile… Introducing fear and worry into your thoughts is Satan’s attempt to dethrone God in your life. He hints to you that God might not be all He claims to be. Isn’t that the essence of fear?

Why does God repeat His injunction, “Do not fear,” over and over? Because there is so much to fear. If you were expected to navigate life on your own, in your own ability, then fear would be the only choice. He does not promise to give you a life that has nothing fearful in it, but He does promise to buffer you in such a way that fear does not have the last word. We don’t have to give fear free rein in our lives. We are not at the mercy of events outside us because we have the living, present Jesus inside us.

It seems our human nature, apart from the redeeming, restoring work of Jesus in us, is hardwired for fear. When challenges appear, we default to fear. Fear is our habit. So Jesus is saying over and over, “Do not fear.” It’s not a command. You can’t make yourself stop fearing. It’s an invitation . Maybe it sounds something like this: “Let that fear drive you to Me. You have no control, but I have complete control. Instead of wallowing in fear, let fear redirect your heart and fasten it on Me.”

Jesus is the fear-buster. His voice speaking to your heart has the power to decimate fear. The voice that called the world into being with the power of His word has direct access to your mind and emotions. The Father says, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him.” (Luke 9:35)

We will all find ourselves in circumstances that have the potential to produce fear, and Jesus will use those circumstances to makes us fearless.
Today’s blog is an excerpt from Prized: Experience the Tender Love of the Savior, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, pp. 106-108. Copyright (c) 2019 by the Praying Life Foundation. Published by New Hope Publishers. Used with permission. (Be sure to open this blog in your browser to enjoy the song below “Fear Not” by Kristene DiMarco.)

Jul 17

Are you negotiating with God?

Don’t let this adorable, seemingly innocent smile fool you… she’s a negotiator.  Consider our recent conversation.

ABBY: You have any stuffed animals dat were mommy’s when she was a widdle girl?
ME: I don’t think so. I think I gave them all to her already.
ABBY: Can you just check?
ME: Sure, I can do that.
ABBY: An’ if you find any, can you give ’em to me?
ME: OK, I’ll do that.
ABBY: Good, ’cause Mommy said we no can buy any more stuffed animals.

Uh-oh. Scammed by a preschooler.

I don’t think Abby’s negotiating skills are all that unusual as I believe most children are negotiators–wrangling to get what they want, how and when they want it. By the teenage years the art seems to be perfected. (I recall our middle daughter insisting that because she was old enough to have donated blood, she was old enough to do whatever else she wanted!)

But for many of us, negotiating is something we carry into adulthood and even into our relationship with God. I know I’ve been guilty over the years of trying to bargain with the Almighty. I remember in the spring of 1991 just after finishing my chemo, I knew God was calling me to start a cancer support ministry. Honestly, I just wanted to put cancer behind me and get back to my normal life. Hanging out with cancer patients sounded depressing.

However, a few weeks later I came up with an idea that I figured would suit both God and me: I would start a cancer support group, and God would have to let me live because everyone in that group would need me!

But God reminded me that He doesn’t play “Let’s Make a Deal.” (I was surprised, too,  that He knew that TV show!) Instead, He wanted me to get involved—no guarantees and definitely no negotiating.

As most of you know, I reluctantly started a Cancer Prayer Support Group in October 1991 and it became one of the greatest joys of my life. In fact, many of you reading this are people I met in that group. Eventually, that group led to me being hired by my oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, where I met many, many more of you. And then my role as his patient advocate led to my writing my first book, When God & Cancer Meet, which has sold more than 100,000 copies and allowed me to meet many, many, many more of you.

What a great lesson in non-negotiating. I didn’t need to wring blessings from God’s hands.  He was  not interested in my bargaining chips or attempted cajoling. I just needed to follow where He was leading and leave the rest up to Him. When I did, He proved to me one again that He is able to “accomplish more than we might ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)

“So I stop all negotiations with the God of all Creation.
You’re bigger than I thought You were.
You’re bigger than I thought You were.
I will rest in the Father’s hands.
Leave the rest in the Father’s hands.”
–Passion “Bigger than I Thought You Were”

(P.S. Don’t miss the music video below–I honestly planned this whole blog around the words because they are so powerful.)

 

Jul 03

So Many Unanswered Questions


Twenty-nine years ago if I had heeded this quote from the creator of Peanuts, I could have saved myself many sleepless nights.

I was pretty consumed back then with trying to figure out how a healthy-eating-and-exercising-mom in her thirties could get cancer. Especially colon cancer for crying out loud! Colonoscopies aren’t even recommended for the average person until age 50.

I never smoked. I wasn’t overweight and worked out regularly at the local Y. I ate a high-fiber, low-fat diet including all our homegrown pesticide-free vegetables. In my mind someone who leaves the skin on their mashed potatoes and who shakes wheat germ on everything should not get colon cancer! Besides my little girls needed their mommy and my husband already watched one wife die a slow, debilitating death.

How? Why? What if?

Any unanswered questions keeping you awake at night?

If you’re trying to figure out exactly why you or your loved one is facing a trial right now, I’m afraid you won’t get any explanations from me. I don’t believe we can make sense of another person’s suffering—only our own. People often want to try anyway and they’ll preach and tell you why it all happened, but they’re not God and they don’t really know. It might make them feel better to think they have it all figured out, but I doubt it will do much for you.

And if you are the loved one of someone facing really difficult circumstances, please don’t tell them “everything happens for a reason.” Such a comment minimizes the sufferer’s feelings and implies that there’s a good, rational justification for what has occurred. I won’t be uttering that phrase to my daughter’s friends who have a 5-year-old  with  spina bifida and  a 7-year-old with an aggressive brain tumor. Instead I will pray that these dear parents, who love their sons and their Lord will run with their sleep-interrupting questions to the One who knows them best and loves them most.

I waited a long time for the Eternal;
He finally knelt down to hear me.
He listened to my weak and whispered cry. Psalm 40:1 The Voice Bible

Hear me, O God, when I cry;
listen to my prayer.
You are the One I will call when pushed to the edge,
when my heart is faint.
Shoulder me to the rock above me. Psalm 60:1-2 The Voice Bible

I’ll never know the answers to your questions or all of mine, but something I read in a book by C.S. Lewis has helped me to be more at peace with not knowing.

It’s found in a scene from The Horse and His Boy, part of Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series. These classic children’s books (loved by adults, too) are set in the magical land of Narnia, which is ruled by a powerful lion named Aslan (who represents Jesus). At one point Aslan explains to a rich runaway girl named Aravis why some of the awful things that happened to her had to occur. She then asks Aslan what will happen to her stepmother’s slave, who was punished for falling asleep after Aravis had drugged her.

“Will any more harm come to her by what I did?”

“Child,” said the Lion, “I am telling you your story, not hers. No-one is told any story but their own.”[1]

 

Are you trying to understand your story? Take your questions to your Heavenly Father, who will either give you the answers you need…or the peace to live with the questions.

[1]C. S. Lewis, Horse and His Boy (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 202.

Excerpted from Peace in the Face of Cancer. Copyright 2017 by Lynn Eib.
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Be sure to open this blog in your browser to hear the music video below “Hold Me Jesus” by Rich Mullins.

Mar 20

God Doesn’t Need Good Odds to Heal

I’ve been thinking a lot about  odds–good odds, bad odds, no odds–because as soon as I finish writing this blog I’m filling out my bracket for the NCAA basketball championship as I attempt to predict all 67 game winners. The odds I will do that correctly are rather slim: 1 in 9.2 quintillion, according to a DePaul University mathematician. (For the record, a quintillion is a billion billions!) Needless to say, no one in the history of the tournament has ever had a verifiably perfect bracket and you can be sure I won’t either!

You may or may not be a college basketball fan, but chances are you think about odds, too. Maybe the survival odds a physician has given you or a loved–or those you’ve read about online. Perhaps you’re considering the odds your marriage will survive or whether you ever will get married. Maybe the odds you’re contemplating are whether or not you’ll get the money to pay your bills or if you’ll find a much-needed job. Perhaps the odds seem to be stacked against you…and maybe they actually are.

But I have some encouragement for you which I recently read  from best-selling author Chris Tiegreen:

“Are you weary? Feeling defeated? Overwhelmed by the odds against you? Don’t be. This isn’t about odds, and it isn’t even about your strength. Our weakness is no problem for God; in fact, it’s His golden opportunity to show Himself strong. If you are feeling weak, you are in a good place. God can now do His work with less hindrance. The stage is set for His might.”

I remember when I was diagnosed with cancer in 1990 at the age of 36 and given about a 40-percent chance of survival, I felt overwhelmed by those odds. But as I began to consider the God of scripture, I knew He didn’t need good odds to achieve a victory.

What do you think the oddsmakers would have given the shepherd boy David vs. the giant Goliath?

What were the odds Sarah would give birth at the age of 90?

What was the possibility that 5,000 men, plus women and children could be fed with five loaves of bread and two small fish…and even have leftovers?

How likely was it that a Jewish carpenter would walk out from a sealed tomb three days after being tortured and crucified?

If you or your loved one is facing an uphill battle of tough odds, please remember that God doesn’t need good odds to heal–and that’s any kind of healing: mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. 

Listen! The LORD’S arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear your call. Isaiah 59:1

Maybe your loved one is near death or already has passed away and you’re thinking there’s a 100-percent chance you can’t make it without them.  I want to remind you that “the stage is set for His might.” You may not get over this loss, but by God’s presence and power, you will get through it.

God is our refuge and our strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. Psalm 46:1-2

The song below was written by Mark Hall, lead singer of Casting Crowns on the day he was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2015 (read the story behind the song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BPNLi1TPXE  ). What a beautiful message from one who has been in the valley: “O my soul, you are not alone.”

 

 

 

Feb 27

I Choose Joy!

“It’s quiet. It’s early. My coffee is hot. The sky is still black. The world is asleep. The day is coming.

“In a few moments the day will arrive. It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun. The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day. The calm of solitude will be replaced by the pounding of the human race. The refuge of the early morning will be invaded by decisions to be made and deadlines to be met.

“For the next twelve hours I will be exposed to the day’s demands. It is now I must make a choice… Because of Calvary I’m free to choose. And so I choose.

“I choose JOY…

I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance.

I will refuse the temptation to be cynical…the tool of the lazy thinker.

I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings created by God.

I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.”

I choose JOY.”
(Excerpted from When God Whispers Your Name, copyright 2009 by Max Lucado)

 Will you choose joy today? If you would like to, but your “funny bone” isn’t working, you need to get it repaired.

I recommend you go to the manufacturer of your life (God). Contact Him on His technical support hotline (prayer) and check out His operating instructions for your life (the Bible). God created you and knows just what you need. I can’t promise God will give you a laugh, but I can promise He will give you His deep-seated joy. It begins by choosing to become a follower of Jesus and it continues day by day by choosing to allow Him to direct your life. Then, and only then, will you find a quiet joy in spite of any circumstance. 

Here’s how Jesus explains it in John 15:11: “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”

Will you invite God to be the Lord over your painful circumstances? Will you refuse to doubt that you can make it through? Will you see your irritating friends and relatives as people for whom Jesus died? Will you look at your problems as an incredible opportunity to see God at work? Will you rest in the love of Jesus and be filled with His true joy?

Choose JOY today…because of Calvary you can.
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Please enjoy the music video below “Joy” by For King and Country (open in your browser).