Don't Give UP

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up (Galatians 6:9).

The story is told of a great pianist who was scheduled to perform for a small country town. Everyone in the town was excited since they rarely had the opportunity to hear a famous musician. A young mother was especially excited. Her son had been taking piano lessons and showed great promise …but he hated to practice. His mother was hoping that if her son saw the great pianist perform, he would be motivated to take his music more seriously.

The night of the concert finally arrived, and it seemed as if everyone in town had come. As the young mother settled her son in his seat, her attention turned to the crowd pouring in. Everyone was dressed in their finest, and a buzz of excitement filled the concert hall. No one noticed the little boy as he slipped out of his seat and made his way down the aisle toward the stage. No one noticed the little boy as he walked onto the stage, climbed up on the piano stool, and began to play “Chopsticks.”

The concert hall fell silent as every eye turned toward the stage. People began to yell, “Where is that child’s mother? How did he get on stage? Somebody get him down immediately! This is so embarrassing for our town!” The guest artist was standing in the wings, getting ready to make his entrance when he heard the shouts and saw and heard the little boy. Grabbing his jacket, the great pianist ran onto the stage, came up behind the little boy and placed his masterful hands on the keyboard beside the hands of the small child. The little boy was startled but did not move as the man whispered in the boy’s ear, “Don’t stop. Don’t quit. Keep going.” As the little boy began to play again, the great pianist began to play as well, composing a beautiful counter melody to “Chopsticks.”

I know some of you are ready to give up and quit. Some mountain is standing between you and the dream you thought was sure to become a reality. You think God has lost track of where you are and what you are going through. He hasn’t. That is a lie from the pit and smells like smoke. Don’t buy it!

I know you don’t understand why a loving God would allow so much pain to saturate this broken world and perpetuate such loss and hurt. I don’t either. But God’s ways are so much higher than my ways, and His thoughts are for my eternal good – not my temporary comfort. I am banking on eternity. I am counting on the character of God and His heart of unconditional, unmerited, and undeserved love.

God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness give me the strength to get out of bed each morning, and His peace is my comfort in the dark, lonely night. Like you, I sometimes ask God why He has allowed a circumstance to exist. I have questioned His favor and allowed fear and worry to make me doubt His plan. And I have to tell you that I can now look back and see so many of the question marks yanked into exclamation points in my life. I am so thankful that He said “no” to so many of the prayers I desperately wanted Him to answer with “yes.” He is God. He is able and He is more than enough.

Don’t stop! No matter where you are today, know He is with you and that His heart is for you.

Don’t quit. He is not angry with you. You are His daughter, the apple of His eye and His cherished child.

Don’t give up. Right now, surrender all of your pain to Him. Shed your tears, knowing He will collect them all and one day pour them back into your life as a refreshing rain of restoration and healing.

Keep going. Ask your questions, knowing Heaven is not in a panic and that your God really is who He says He is and will do what He has promised to do. He simply waits for you to trust Him.

 

What Does It Mean To Walk By Faith ?

For we live by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Those words seem simple enough.
However, I am learning that fleshing out those words, that simple concept, can be a much tougher assignment. It requires tremendous courage and strength. You must be willing to be misunderstood and even abandoned. You must be willing to give up any semblance of control of your life that you thought you might have. You must be willing to look like a complete fool.
But it is a journey of tremendous blessing and reward. It is a journey that is exciting, life-altering, and mind-boggling. It is a journey that will allow you to see and experience God as he was meant to be: in all his fullness and grace.
Walking by faith and not by sight requires you to go to a place you do not know, one that God will reveal as you walk in obedience. Just look to Abraham as an example (Genesis 12:1).
Walking by faith means that you continue to cling to the dreams God has planted in your heart, even when you’ve been thrown away, taken to prison for crimes you didn’t commit. Just look at all Joseph endured (Genesis 37-50).
Walking by faith requires a strong determination to follow God’s plan regardless what life throws your way. Look to Daniel to discover how to have the resolve not to sin (Daniel 1:8).
Walking by faith means you have the courage to stand up for the hurting, broken, and down-trodden, to face death yourself for the good of others. Look at Esther and how she risked the death penalty to save the Jews (Esther).
You just may have to play the part of a fool. Think about Noah building an ark for a flood when it had never even rained on earth. Think about Abraham clinging to the promise that he would be the father of many nations even though he was childless at the age of 100. Think about Moses standing before the Israelites in the wilderness telling them they would eat meat until it disgusted them but having no idea where that meat would come from. Think about Joshua marching around the walls of Jericho as God had told him to and wondering what good it was going to do.
If you choose this path, you must be willing to get out of your comfort zone, to run from the Americanized brand of Christianity that so many of us have known our entire lives. You must be willing to let God take your world and turn it upside down, shake it up, and start all over again. You must be willing to let God out of the neat little box that you have put him in, to let him show up as he sees fit.
Maybe it will be a calling to do something you never dreamed before: foster or adopt children, leave your job and become a missionary, trade in the worldly comforts for heavenly treasures.
Maybe it won’t be that clean and neat and socially acceptable. Maybe, like me, your world will be turned upside down by the pain of adultery and divorce. Or maybe you will be faced with infertility or addiction. Maybe you will have a prodigal child that completely changes the direction of your life. Or, maybe you’ve experienced the loss of a child—a hurt like no other.
I don’t know what your shake up might look like, but I know that if you will give it to God—throw up your arms in surrender and ask him to use it to change your life—he will honor your request. He will take you on a journey, teach you to walk by faith, entrust you with some of life’s most treasured moments.He will build a faith in you—faith that moves mountains and moves God’s hands. He will teach you to live this life with abandonment, giving you a freedom to walk in all his fullness and grace. He will prepare you to be used mightily in this life for his glory.
Perhaps you’ve already experienced your life being turned upside down, toppled without any control. Perhaps, like me, you’ve found yourself wandering in the wilderness, watching his fire direct your every step by night, a cloud lead you by day. Perhaps you sense you are on the edge of the Promised Land, just waiting for him to give the command to take possession.
And yet, you are tired and weary. You’ve lost friends who don’t understand how you can continue to cling to a promise that is so obviously dead and gone. You are so close and yet feel so far away. You are struggling with temptations to just settle, even though you know it is less than God’s best. You simply don’t know how much longer you can stand.
You are not alone. I see God raising up a remnant of believers, those he knows will be obedient. He is looking for those with clean hands and a pure heart, those who will choose obedience even if it costs them everything this world has to offer. He is looking for those who will throw caution to the wind, believe that he has an abundant life (John 10:10) waiting if we will follow his ways. He is looking for those whose hearts have been purified, whose faith has been strengthened by the trials of this life (James 1:2). He is looking for those who will cling to his promises even when it seems there is no hope.
Be strong and courageous, my friends!
God has specifically chosen you to be a part of this remnant, those who will allow him to take their lives and mold them into what he wants. He has chosen you to have your faith tested and tried, and he promises that the fire will only purify you—not burn you. He has promised that he will be with you every single step, walking with you, carrying you, supporting you. He promises that he is still in control even when life seems to be spiraling wildly out of control.
He is teaching you to trust him so he can do something bigger and better than you ever dreamed possible (Ephesians 3:20-21). He is teaching you to let go and trust him with your heart, your soul, your life (Proverbs 3:5-6). He is teaching you to walk every single day in the spirit so that he can do even greater works in you and through you (John 14:12). He is preparing you to be a beacon of light and hope to a world which desperately needs to see Jesus.
I don’t know where you are on this journey of walking by faith, but I encourage you—beg you, plead with you—to wave the white flag of surrender. Let God take your life, your pain, your loss and use it for his glory. Ask him to do an amazing work in you so he can do an amazing work through you.
Get out of that boat and step onto the water…and never take your eyes off him. It is a decision you will never regret!

Chair Time

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms with Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6).


We live crowded lives. It is easy to forget what is really important. We tend to relinquish control of our lives to unworthy demands dictated by a world that operates in “urgent” gear. The important rarely barges in while the urgent is always an offensive intruder. The important waits patiently while the urgent demands its own way, creating bedlam and imbalance. Certainly, there are times when the important is also urgent – but we must learn to discern between the two. We wrongly conclude that a busy life is automatically a productive life and think that a full schedule will surely produce a full heart. It won’t.

It’s easy to relegate our spirituality to religious activity when all God really wants is to spend time with us. When the tears fall, He wants to wipe them away, collecting each one so that He can pour them back into our lives as a refreshing rain of restoration. God longs for us to forever run into His arms, sharing every hurt and rejoicing in every victory. The Father yearns to wrap His strong arms around us, bringing the peace and balance we so desperately need. We just need to stop … be still … and listen for His voice.

We need to embrace and understand the truth that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God … and so are we! My husband recently wrote an E-Book that beautifully explains the powerful truth in Ephesians 2:6 that says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms with Christ Jesus.”

Who is the “us” in this verse? The “us” in Ephesians 2:6 refers to all believers. All who have bowed the knee in surrender to Christ. All who are Christ followers. Past, present and future – everyone that has ever and will ever follow Jesus is included.

What does the verse say we (all the believers) are doing? We are sitting. Sitting! What do you have to possess to be sitting? A chair! You got it! Every believer has a chair.

Now let’s get practical. Where are all these believers? The verse says that we are seated with Christ in heaven. Hmmm, if I am still here on earth, serving Jesus on this side of heaven, how can I also be seated with Christ in heaven?

Now it gets fun. Picture this. Picture heaven as having an enormous throne. Picture that throne as 100 miles wide by 100 miles deep by 100 miles high. God the Father sits on that throne, and He faces out in every direction from that throne. Jesus the Son stands beside the throne, praying and interceding for us. Got the picture? Stop reading for a moment, close your eyes, and try to picture this enormous throne in the center of heaven.

Now add an element to the picture. Around that huge throne, start adding a row of chairs. There is one row around that throne. Then add a row above it and below it – but still just one row deep around the throne. Now step back and picture that throne with all of those chairs from a short distance away. Wow! What a picture - this huge throne of God, with a front row chair for every believer that has ever lived.

Now let’s get personal. Center your focus on one chair. Zoom in to that one chair. Notice anything? Look on the back of the chair. Yep – you got it! Your name is on that chair. There is a chair in heaven in the front row at the throne of God. It is your chair. It has your name on it. It fits you. No one can sit in that chair except you. And you can go to that chair any time you want.

Why would you go to that chair? To talk to God? No! I may not know much, but I can guarantee you this. When you are seated in the front row before the throne of God, you will not be talking! You may fall on your knees! You may gasp in amazement! You may raise your hands in worship! But you won’t be talking! You will be listening to what God has to say to you.

Is your mind running ahead of me? Are you getting the picture? Does that phrase “chair time” now make sense?

The premise is simple. The God of this universe wants to talk with you so much that He has reserved a front row seat for you at His throne in Heaven. You can go there anytime you want. You can sit at His feet, feel His embrace, and hear His voice any time you want. All you need to do is sit in the chair. Wow!

I have great news ! He loves who you are more than He loves what you do. Seek Him today. Make room for Him. He is waiting.