Category: Word

Delight: enough

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Many years ago, I went to my church’s women’s retreat, determined to wrest from God His answer to a decision with which I’d been grappling. I had been praying for several years about being a youth leader, but He had clearly said no each time I tried to sign up. I mean, it was unequivocally clear, closed doors and all. Nonetheless, I kept asking Him for it, hoping and waiting for the time He’d give the green light. At the same time, a seemingly competing desire captivated my heart: a fourth child. I didn’t see how both could be possible (there are only so many hours in the day, and my husband, three sons, and on-call job seemed to fill them all), so I went up the mountain that weekend for a showdown of consecrated will-seeking.

On the afternoon of the second day of the retreat, I was sitting by the lake with my Bible and journal, praying and seeking God’s decision about which one of those two options was His choice for me. And suddenly, Psalm 37:4 leaped through my mind like a deer:

“Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

Just like that, I knew He had spoken into this decision, and I had peace. I didn’t have an answer one way or the other, but I knew that all He wanted me to do was delight myself in Him, and He would grant me what was in His will.

Six months later, I was pregnant with my fourth son.

Six months after his birth, God called me to start a prayer team for the youth ministry at our church. His plan all along had not been for me to be a youth leader, but to form an intercessory prayer team of moms who would pray FOR the youth pastor, leaders, and kids. It was His perfect timing, because there were situations that needed prayer. His perfect timing, because when I had first started praying to be a youth leader years before, I was a young Christian and needed a whole lot of cleaning up and Bible-learning and priority-adjusting.

That youngest son just grew up, from carseat to teenage, being part of youth ministry. That’s how God gave both. Fourth son and his 3-year-older brother were “mascots” in their young years, the name we gave to kids accompanying their parents in their responsbilities as youth leaders. And before you knew it, he was a legitimate youth grouper in his own right among leaders and kids he’d known all his years.

So, God did both–gave me a fourth son AND a ministry that had been going 16 years by the time I left it–because I chose to delight myself in Him and leave the results of my petitions to Him. He was able to determine what truly were my desires, because, of course, us flawed folks often get godly heart-desires and fleshy wants all mixed up.

Recently, I’ve been asking God for something that feels pretty impossible and yet is such a yearning for this season of my life. As I was praying about it last week, again there was Psalm 37:4 in my head: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I’ve walked with the Lord some years since that weekend at the retreat (that fourth son is now 22!), and it’s much more natural to trust Him with whatever He wants to do with this request of mine. My focus isn’t on the “desire”, but on “delighting in Him.” I have seen His faithfulness so many times, in every area of my life, that I just simply trust whatever He decides to do as I recommit myself to delighting myself in Him.

But I’ve also been thinking about–what if this verse was simply, “Delight yourself in the LORD”–period? End? Fact? What if I didn’t concern myself at all about the second part of the verse–getting the desires of my heart? What if I just lived in 37:4a, and forgot, ignored, 37:4b? I can see that my faith has matured over the last quarter century from–how do I get this result from the Lord; how do I make Him pleased so that I’m in the “zone” for rewards–to, Lord, I just want to delight myself in You…

Because that’s enough.

Yes, He is a giver of all good things (James 1:17), and He loves to bless His people (too many verses to hunt down and note here!). He loves to reward faith and trust and obedience and sacrificial love. He can’t NOT, because it’s His very nature. But what if, walking out into 2026, we just focus on delighting in Him? After all, any thing, circumstance, relationship, etc., that comes from Him because of that will actually be less than the experience we have as we delight in Him. “If He is our delight, He gives us more of Himself. ‘Longings fixed on Him fulfill themselves.'” (Guzik commentary, quoting Maclaren)

Question: is there something you’ve been wrestling with God for in prayer? How would your petitions change if you focused on just delighting yourself in Him?

Jesus Reverses the Rip-Offs

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(First published May 11, 2021)

In Luke 4, Jesus arrives in His hometown of Nazareth and, as is His usual practice, He goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath and is given the floor by the religious leaders to teach. What He reads is His job description, prophesied hundreds of years before by Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

As I read this passage this morning, I was struck by the lines I italicized. It occurred to me that these functions of Jesus’ purpose are all a rolling back of conditions that have brought their victims to life all-stop.

  • the brokenhearted? Used to be whole-hearted.
  • the captives? Used to walk free.
  • the blind? Used to see (note: “recovery” of sight)
  • the oppressed? Used to feel joy and hope.

Jesus comes to restore, give back, full life to those who no longer have it. Who’ve been ripped off.

Someone, some circumstance, broke their hearts, took them captive, blinded eyes, shattered joy. They live like taped-up Humpty Dumpties. No one seems to be able to put them back together again.

This reminds me of Paul saying to the Corinthians, “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Cor 11:3) Paul was saying, I am jealous for you on Christ’s behalf that you walk in the abundant life you started off in, but I’m afraid you’ve been ripped off. Diverted. Deluded.

Friends, did any of you used to be whole-hearted, free, clear-sighted, joyful—but now feel broken, captive, blind, oppressed? It’s HARD to live that way! Maybe you even walk as a Christian lugging a burden of brokenness or under a cloud of oppression. This is not unusual: if the enemy can’t have you completely, he’ll settle for half. He’ll take his reward as you have an anxiety attack in the church bathroom or feel numb as worshipers lift their hands in the next row. He’ll feel satisfied when you consistently live less-than.

Why? Because Ephesians 2:10. Paul tells us there that we are God’s masterpiece, made to do all kinds of purposeful good stuff that God thought up for us even before the creation of the world. If the enemy can keep us brokenhearted and blind and oppressed and captive, buying the lie that this is as good as it gets or deciding this is just our cross to bear—well, he figures he’s got a dub.

I for sure understand this one. Although when young I remember feeling joy and simple excitement about relationship with Jesus, I’ve lived a lot of my life with corners of yuck that have kept me from believing I am who He says I am and walking confidently and purposefully in what He made me to do. I’ve felt like a square peg in a round hole at times, trying to fit where God didn’t make me to fit and please people He didn’t tell me to please. I’ve let Him re-set me over the past months and though I’m still a work in progress, I feel Him putting me back where I was before the enemy scored his points. It’s actually so much simpler than I’ve been living; I think the enemy likes to complicate a whole lot of stuff. And I feel a joy I haven’t felt in a very long time.

If you’re limping along in less-than sight, freedom, joy, and whole-heartedness, ripped off and deluded and diverted, go talk to Jesus. He specializes in healing broken hearts, giving back freedom, and restoring clear vision. Reversing the rip-offs. Go!

Think About It

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(First published May 27, 2021).

This jumped out at me the other morning:

“While Peter thought about the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him…” Acts 10:19

While Peter thought….the Holy Spirit said.

Peter had just experienced a crazy vision while waiting for lunch. He wasn’t just loopy from being hungry, although maybe his stomach was growling. No, God had just shown him something, threefold, that made no sense to him; in fact, it went counter to his entire cultural experience. He was confused.

If that happened to me today, I’d probably reach for my phone to google “threefold confusing vision” and then get lost in 100 search results and end up who knows where on the internet. Or, maybe I’d Insta-story it and spend 10 minutes picking font and background and music to accompany it. Maybe I’d Facebook it too, editing my description a couple of times for grammar (I know, I know, the writer in me). But if I did any or all of that——I’d lose the punch of the moment. I’d miss what God was trying to communicate to me.

Maybe Peter would have done all of those things too if he’d had an iPhone or a laptop. After all, he was kind of well known for being impulsive. But he didn’t have those things, so he thought.

Do you remember thinking? I do. Sometimes I feel like it’s something I did in another lifetime. Sometimes I forget how it’s actually done: you know, just you. Alone. With your thoughts. Following them through. Musing. Pondering. Contemplating. Arriving at a thorough decision. I feel frustrated, often, that I start to consider a situation but am quickly diverted before giving it the attention that it needs. Then I draw a conclusion that I know isn’t complete…isn’t properly vetted. Sometimes, because God is gracious, those conclusions end up ok—but sometimes they are shown for not being given the attention they deserve.

But look at what happened when Peter thought: “the Holy Spirit said…” The Spirit told him that some people were going to arrive at the house and that he was to go with them. He did. Implied he was to trust that that next step would lead to the understanding he needed. It did: the exclusive ownership of Messiah by Jewish culture shattered as it became clear the gospel was now to go to the Gentiles. Then the crazy vision made total sense and Peter was able to see, afterward, that God had been preparing him for the thing beforehand. He could see his partnership in one of the biggest events in church history.

I suggest we think about how to best start thinking again. We don’t have to journey into the desert with a jug of water and loaf of bread, or trudge down a cliff onto an inaccessible stretch of shoreline (though I really do love sitting by the ocean while figuring things out). It means taking a walk without my headphones or doing my housework without a TV show on in the background. It means journaling my inner processing (must say, that has always been my forte) and tuning my social media waaaayyyy down. (Note: social media is probably the biggest force of opposition to just plain independent thinking, as well as the hugest distraction most of us face throughout each day). I suggest considering what in your days keeps you from having quiet time in your head and eliminate it so that you can perceive when the Holy Spirit speaks.

(On a related note: Church, in these clamorous, tumultuous times, we need to reclaim our alone time with the Lord. If we waited on the Holy Spirit to speak into Unprecedented Issues, how much of our division over the past 14 months could have been avoided? I submit that we have thought too little and flesh-spoken too much.)

The next time we are faced with a decision, an opinion we need to land in, a situation that confuses us—let’s just stop and wait on the Holy Spirit to ‘splain. What’s ahead may not be culture-shattering, but it will much more likely line up with God’s direction.

Go forth and think.

Warned

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(First published August 4, 2020)

Have you ever seen a movie in which, perhaps early on, one character warns another about the future? Perhaps it is regarding a choice he/she will face, or a relationship, or an event, but it usually seems unlikely. We can’t see how that could ever occur given what we know so far about the people in the movie. By the time the choice/relationship/event faces our character, the plot will have filled in all the pieces we could never have foreseen and we can see why that warning was so necessary. We’ve seen movies that roll out many variations on these plots, and we can never totally be sure how the warned character will opt when all comes to pass. But the warn-er, it’s clear, believes the warn-ee is capable of recognizing the situation when it appears and making the right choice. And one thing above all: the warn-er wants the warn-ee to win, to get it right, to avoid whatever bad would result from the wrong choice.

Friends, I would suggest we are living in a real-life rollout of the above. And yep, this is where I talk Scripture. Please don’t scroll and skip. Please. I really want us all to win from taking heed to the warnings before us.

The Old Testament is full full full of prophecies about the near and far future of those who are embedded in its pages. These are WAY beyond the scope of this ordinary blog post, but suffice to say God made it clear in these 39 books that not only would His Son come as Messiah to pay for the sin of the world, giving us opportunity for eternal relationship with Him, but that there would be a final day of judgment. Consider us warned.

The New Testament continues this conversation (the Bible is completely cohesive!) as Jesus proceeds, in the four gospels, to tell us more about “that day” than anyone else. He talks frankly about heaven, hell, and final judgment—at which time those who’ve refused Him will have no last-minute opportunity to say, “Oops! Sorry! Wait! I change my mind!” He makes it clear that He, as Savior, is the only way to heaven, then dies to pay our way and rises again to prove it. He returns to heaven but assures us He will be back—this time as Judge. Warned.

Jesus also tells us what the days that precede His coming will be like. Although scholars debate terms like premillennial, postmillennial, and etc—it’s clear that before He returns there will be a time of (I’d say “unprecedented,” but that word has been overused to nauseous cliche this year) stunning upheaval on the earth and in the skies. Before that, though, we will see what He calls “the beginning of birth pains”—conflicts among nations, earthquakes, famines, plagues. Warned.

Further on in the NT, Paul, Timothy, Peter, John, and Jude give us more information on what to look for in this “almost-to-the-end” season of planet Earth. They give us glimpses of false teachers nearly indistinguishable from others in our church flocks, “terrible times” of greed, disobedience, violence, blasphemy of the name of Jesus, lawlessness, counterfeit signs/wonders done by false prophets and ultimately the person called the anti-Christ. They tell us it will be absolutely critical in those days to hang on to the doctrines of the Bible, testing all things against its plumb line. Urge us to endure even in the face of all these events. Soberingly admonish us that not all who start this walk with Jesus will make it safely to the end, because many will fall prey to the lies and drift away to eventual destruction on that day He returns as Judge. Warned.

So we can WIN.

Hmmmmm.

I am far, far away from setting any times or dates—that is one hundred percent impossible per the very words of Jesus. But 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us that, because we have spiritual understanding as born-again believers, we will be able to tell when these signs pop up and point us to Jesus’ second coming and the eventual end of this world. And people—sisters, brothers—those signs are here.

The reason the word “unprecedented” has become a nauseous cliche is because, well, so many events of recent years and especially recent months can be described no other way. If you can, right now, hop onto any news site, read headlines, then hop back into this blog and tell me you don’t see occurrences that fall into the lists above…well…you can’t.

So here’s the point: if we are indeed seeing the times we’ve been warned about…this is the time to take heed. He may be days, months, or decades from splitting the skies and calling this thing done, but there’s no time like today to prepare for it. And just as Jesus and the rest of the gang told us what we would see as His judgment drew close, they also told us the only two possible outcomes of that judgment:

  1. HEAVEN: for those who acknowledge Jesus as Savior (the only way into a relationship with God, because of His sinless life and atoning death on the cross), admit their sin, accept His forgiveness, and allow Him to be Lord of their entire lives. THIS IS THE WIN!
  2. HELL: for those who refuse the above. I have stood at the gravesides of those who have lived their lives in this defiance and shuddered at what they began enduring the instant their souls departed their bodies.

For the record, there is no purgatory (the concept is never once addressed in Scripture. Check out Luke 16: 19-31, note v. 26).

No greasy grace.

No “when-I-hear-the-trumpet-I’ll-confess-my-sin.”

No “I don’t think God would send me to hell just because I ___________.”

No “a God of love would never hate anything.”

And note: just because you may not believe in God, doesn’t make any of this change. You may not believe in electricity, but that doesn’t make it not real. (Try not believing in the law of gravity—did you spend the day floating? Nope.)

Jesus is coming back, and we will all end up one of two places for all eternity.

Folks, we’ve been warned. And if you never heard any of this before and truly have been blithely clueless until you read this post, well, you’re warned now. The signs we’ve been told to look for are easy to find—a click away in uncensored video format, pretty much instantaneously, from anywhere in the world. Let’s not get caught up in the circumstances of them and miss the big picture to which they’re pointing. Let’s not miss it when the choice we’ve been warned about is right in front of our faces.

Life may feel like a drama most of the time these days, but I assure you it is not a movie. Our warnings are much more serious, and our choices eternal. God, the prophets, the apostles, and I—we all want you to WIN.