Category Archives: Kingdom Life

It’s a Bad Day, Part 2

King David looked back over a life filled with the good, the bad and some pretty serious ugly and came to the conclusion of Psalm 23; a song from the shepherd boy to The Shepherd of his heart and life.

Psalm 23 is the culmination of David’s life. it is the God inspired battle plan for conquering bad days and experiencing fewer bad days even in the midst of great trial and loss. Even in the middle of the Year 2020!

If God is your Shepherd, if He is my Shepherd, then we can live by this battle plan and be victorious even in the bad days!

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. Psalm 23:1

I don’t think I really believe this, just like a dumb sheep.

When I see a good balance in the bank account and when I see the cupboards full and when I see healthy and satisfied family all around me then I am happy and full of praise and adoration. But in those times, if I am honest, I am confident in me; in what I can accomplish; in what I can produce. I don’t see God’s hand in all that provision and I am not trusting in Him as my Shepherd and I am not living in a spirit of thanksgiving to Him. The truth is, the good days are all about ME!

So, it is no surprise that when Covid-19 and all the other “stuff” that has come with 2020: the bank balance getting low or the health fails or human relationships get dicey…that I have bad days, really really bad days. I even get mad at God and blame Him for not answering prayers which may or may not have even been said! If that is not a dumb sheep, I don’t know what is!

I shall not want.

King David was the last born son in his family. He was given the worst job a Jewish boy could have, a shepherd of dumb sheep. Then he got the news that he was to be king of all Israel, but He had to wait several decades to finally be king.  In the meantime he was a fugitive on the run, slept in caves, was a leader of cast offs, experienced hunger and sleepless nights, and faced enemies on every side. And then when he finally was king, it was anything but a bed of roses. Yet, God was David’s Shepherd and this earthly king, this shepherd boy, could in his deepest soul confess that in ALL of his life, he did not want…for anything!

If I am truly going to believe this and live this and rest in this, then I have to believe that David’s Shepherd is also My Shepherd! And I do!! Do you?

Jesus said, I am the way, and the truth and and the life; No one comes to the Father but through me. John 14:6

If you reject this about Jesus, then you cannot call God your Shepherd. He is still The Shepherd, but He is not your Shepherd. And you will be wanting; not just on this Earth, but for the eternity that waits for all of us or I should say, the eternity that waits for no one.

If you can believe and can claim John 14:6 and John 3:16 and the host of Scripture pointing to Jesus as Savior, then God is your Shepherd, but you may not always act like it. I know I don’t.

The Bible tell us that Jesus…Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36

The majority of that crowd was mostly lost sheep, in other words, they didn’t believe John 14:6. But some in the crowd were Jesus’ sheep but they were acting like sheep without The Shepherd.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ, it isn’t that He is not my Shepherd on the bad days and therefore I feel wanting; it is that I am acting like a sheep without The Shepherd. Even in the middle of a pandemic, I have a choice. Live like a wandering sheep or live in the fold of The True Shepherd!

And still, The Shepherd, Jesus, has compassion for me and reaches down and picks up His wayward sheep (me), slings me over His shoulder until the bad day passes. Then He places me back among His fold nudging me with His staff and prodding me with His rod because I am one stubborn and stupid sheep!!

And He does this over and over and over; each time teaching and instructing me while providing in such abundance that I shall not want…for anything!

In Jesus I lack nothing. In Jesus I have all I need. God will not withhold any good thing from me.

That is called GRACE!! And in Part 3 we will see exactly what that wonderful and amazing GRACE looks like!!

 

 

 

It’s a Bad Day

If you’ve ever had a bad day, raise your hand? Come on! It is 2020, after all, and unless you have been an ostrich with your head in the sand all year, you’ve had at least a few bad days.

(Admitting you are having a bad day or that you do have bad days is a good start to not having as many bad days. It is when we pretend that everything is fine and dandy so that we look good around others or because we think God will be happier with us if we pretend, that we actually bring dishonor to the very grace of God. Of course, the flip side of pretending that we never have bad days is when we languish in our bad days and nurture our bad days and so much so that we fail to see any grace from God’s Hand and that is also a dishonor to our loving Father.)

I wrote this paragraph back in 2018. I doubt too many people pretend anymore that they never have bad days. We’ve all been touched by Covid-19 and all that has come with it in this historical year. The bad days have been relentless and are too hard to ignore. But, I do think many of us…including me…have languished in our bad days; the country’s bad days and we have failed to see God’s Hand in 2020. We have failed to allow The Gospel to raise us above the bad days and live in God’s amazing grace!

I have had my share of bad days in 2020…anticipated events cancelled, family and friend connections jostled, income reduced and then lost completely, an upheaval of our home, a month of sickness (Thank you, Covid) and the unexpected loss of a loved one (Not Covid. There are still other ways to die.) Yikes! It’s only August! I am confident your experience of 2020 is very similar to mine. Lots of bad days all strung together.

And yet, I have to come to terms with the most common reason I have bad days. I argue with God about what He is doing in my life, in the lives of those I love, in my country and in our world. Worse, I try to tell Him what to do! I try to tell God how to fix things! How arrogant! To think that I can tell God what to do and how to do it.

Though God is big enough and wise enough and gracious enough to handle my arrogance just fine, if I persist and resist the Holy Spirit’s truth to me and refreshment for me in the year 2020, the consequence is a long string of bad days. 

I’ve had too many bad days recently; too much arguing with God about what He is doing or…in my finite thinking…not doing. I’ve resisted taking the steps and willingness to thrive in the Holy Spirit’s process. Now, I am finally tired of the bad days and I want to participate in the steps to have fewer bad days and when they do come, to not stay in them as long.

And I know where to go to start in that process and to take those steps: God’s Word. There is an abundance of Bible Heroes who had bad days and plenty of guidance from God’s interaction with them for me to learn and re-learn how to handle bad days.

Our circumstances have not changed. I don’t think anyone predicts 2020 having fewer bad days. 

But God…

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the quiet waters.

He restores my soul; He guides in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

 

I hope you will join me and rediscover God’s amazing grace and mercy for us all!  Next time, David will tell us more about overcoming those bad days.

 

Wonder Woman and Me-Part 3

It would be absurd for me to discuss what Diana as Wonder Woman and I have in common without sharing what differences I found. There were quite a few actually.

An obvious difference is that Wonder Woman was 5’10” tall and could defeat an entire army garrison in 4-inch platform boots!  I, on the other hand, am 5’4” tall and shrinking! Plus, I can barely walk up several flights of stairs in my arch support tennis shoes without seeking extra oxygen!

Diana figured out how to fly and torpedo herself as a weapon! The only way I can fly is to pay outrageous airline prices, stand in human-cattle lines for hours, and then sit very still in a cramped space between two strangers for 3-4 hours in a giant torpedo shaped can! My weapon of choice is a good dose of Dramamine!

Some other differences include: Diana can rock both a ball gown and a super hero wardrobe. My best look is jeans and an oversized t-shirt! She wields a sword pretty well and can lasso anything she wants. I can wield a mean skillet on a gas stove and there isn’t a jar I can’t open, with a little help from the rubber gripper I keep handy at all times!

There are, of course, many other differences because Wonder Woman is a fabrication of someone’s imagination and there isn’t a real woman anywhere who could begin to match her. That’s the whole idea of a super hero. I’m okay with that and I enjoy her story nonetheless.

There are two important differences though that I want to keep in my heart and mind. One to challenge me and the other to keep me focused on the real world full of it’s real people and our desperate need of a Savior!!

The differences between Wonder Woman and Me

  1. Train Harder!

Hippolyta: You will train her harder than any Amazon before her. Five times harder, 10 times harder — until she is better than even you.

The Queen of the Amazons, Diana’s mother, gave the order for Diana to be trained and trained and trained some more. But that order could only be carried out if Diana was willing to endure the five and ten times harder part of that training. To say that her early training was stepped up, is the bona fide understatement of DC Comic lore. And yet Diana met that training head on until she was the best and no one could beat her; not even the god of war.

Because of Diana’s willingness and even eagerness to train and train harder, she was able to tap into her deepest power and abilities and accept a seemingly impossible mission her mother reluctantly assigned. The only reason Diana could use the “god killer” sword and the lasso of truth and handle a shield for deflecting machine gun shots, is because she trained like her life and the very existence of the world depended on it.

A life of ease didn’t shape Diana, though her mother at first tried to provide that. A life of gladiator training with hand to hand combat smattered with blows to the head and topples to the ground prepared her for super hero status. Lounging around in the castle eating bonbons all day had no place in Diana’s daily experience. Active preparation and a willingness to be trained primed her for the day she pulled a man from the ocean waters. Nothing would be the same for Diana.

Elaine: I don’t have time for training. I have a family, a career, a life to pursue. I’ll fit in church when I can and read the training manual (Bible) sometimes. It’s not my fault I don’t experience the full blessing of God.

Sadly, I cannot with any honest confession, say that I train as one of Jesus’ disciples…as a daughter of the King of Kings…even two times harder let alone five or ten times harder than an average person might do. So in this comparison, I am not like Diana at all!

My spiritual muscles are weak and out of shape. Oh I can get by for a simple hike through church life and family interactions. But I am in no way, shape or form ready for the front lines of the ugly, filthy, and even hateful human messes that are the daily experience of all of us…and mostly from me, myself and I.

Some days, I cannot believe the ugly sinful thoughts that come to my mind and weave through my psyche and then express themselves in curt words or snide glances. One simple WalMart run proves my lack of training! But I shouldn’t be surprised. One church service and a few verses a week are no match for my old nature colliding with a world without Jesus!!

Unlike Diana who became better than her instructor, I will never be better than Jesus! I don’t want to be! He is God! I am Not! And it is much better that way! But, I am commanded to be like Him and the only way to do that is to train 5 times and 10 times harder in God’s Word, by God’s preachers and teachers, with God’s people in the trenches and Jesus as my instructor.

I have not “redeemed the time” or “taken the whole armor of God” with any kind of regularity. But I do want to finish my course well. I want to be a warrior princess for the God who saved me!! May God help me do so!!

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:” II Timothy 4:7

  1. Believe in>>>What?

Diana: “It’s not about what you deserve. It’s what you believe. And I believe in them (people). “Only love can truly save the world.”

This is the biggest and most important difference between Wonder Woman and me.

Her premise sounds so good, so right, so doable. It is echoed all around us: movies, TV shows, marketing, sports figures, politicians and religion. But is it true? And does it solve the human condition; namely sin and separation from Jehovah God and eternal life?

First of all, it is ALL about what I deserve.

I deserve death and damnation because ALL have sinned. 

Romans 3:10 “as it is written, There is none righteous, not even one.”

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death…”

Second, it is not just believing for believing sake. I can believe anything I want about anything I want, but without absolute truth, without the substance of reality, that belief is useless. I can believe a two-legged chair is going to hold me up, but until I actually test that belief and sit down to the truth, that belief is quite ludicrous.

In a world where truth is relative, faith is pointless!

James 2:18-19 “But someone may well say, ‘You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” (emphasis mine)

Third, It is ALL about who you believe in!

Is it a little “g” god or The God, Creator, Lord of Lords and King of Kings? Or as, Diana claimed, should we believe in people?

The only acceptable “belief” in our culture is; “Believe in yourself!” Really? The “Self” that lies if it is convenient? The “Self” that is jealous of anyone who looks better in jeans than “Self” does? The “Self” that screams and yells at those who disagree with “Self”? Or the “Self” who lets the tears fall when someone dares to disagree with “Self’?

How about the “Self” who cheats on their taxes and their spouse? Same difference, right? Or let’s believe in the “Self” who imposes lots of laws but excuses themselves of basic moral law? There is the “Self” who gives up after one or two tries or won’t hold down a job or abandons their kids? I could believe in that “Self”?

There is NOTHING in any human being; not my husband, not my kids, not even my grandkids that is worthy of my belief! And there is absolutely NOTHING in me that persuades me to believe in me! We are ALL too fickle!

No way, am I going to believe in people for my hope and salvation! The human race is a mess and has been since Adam and Eve. And quite frankly, man has been trying to save himself for ten millennia and isn’t doing a very good job. The evil and chaos and self-destruction of our enlightened age is powerful evidence against believing in people.

Little “g” gods like Diana and Thor, et al, are fun to watch in clever movie plots, but they do nothing for my reality or for yours! But neither does the god of the American Dream or peace at any cost. Just a cursory investigation into the rise of crime, violence, hate and suicide tells us that belief in our modern manmade gods leads to death and destruction, not the peace and life we all long for.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but my me.” John 14:6

And he also said, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:30

Jehovah is the God I believe, the Hope I cling to and the Life I long for!!! It is nothing of myself and everything of Him! For that truth I am eternally thankful!

Finally, there is only ONE love that CAN Actually Save the World!

John 3:16“For God so loved the world that He gave is one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death, not life, nor angels, not principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”