All posts in Uncategorized

Creating A Disturbance

Posted
February 13, 2011
Categories
Uncategorized
Comments
0 Comments

Once again, I’m going to refer to, and hopefully expand upon, some thoughts from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost For His Highest. For a daily devotional, Mr. Chambers has some thoughts that go far deeper than most daily devotionals I’ve read, so I hope you get as much out of this as I did.

One of the topics Mr. Chambers discusses is creating a disturbance with your faith and asking for the Lord’s help instead of simply staying passive. Here are his thoughts on why creating a disturbance is importance (followed by my thoughts on his thoughts…lots of thoughts). Chambers refers to verses in Luke 18, in which a blind man in a crowd of people is healed by calling out and asking Jesus to give him back his sight. Chambers mentions the man’s persistence to keep calling out to the Lord even though the people in front of him in the crowd, as mentioned in verse 39, all told him to be quiet. To this point, Chambers advises us,

“Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord himself… To sit calmly by, instead of creating a disturbance, serves only to deify our common sense… We think, ‘It is ridiculous to ask God to do this.’ If it is an impossibility, it is the very thing for which we have to ask… This man received his sight. But the most impossible thing for you is to be so closely identified with the Lord that there is literally nothing of your old life remaining.” (My Utmost for His Highest, Feb. 29)

The way I see it, a lot of people are afraid to make a disturbance with their faith. As Chambers mentions, we’ll find ourselves thinking “It’s ridiculous to ask God to do this.” So we let common sense tell us what to do. Common sense says God isn’t worried about this tiny facet of our lives. Common sense says there a million other people praying for something more important, so why even speak up?

Why we SHOULD speak up…

Let’s think about the man in the crowd whose sight Jesus restored. He was one of hundreds (maybe even thousands) gathered in Jericho that day as Jesus came through. And I’m willing to bet that he wasn’t the ONLY person gathered there who was suffering from an affliction of some sort. But all of the other people seemed to stay quiet, didn’t they? The only time some of them even spoke at all was to tell the blind man to shut up. Talk about approaching it all wrong.

Imagine how many other people might have been healed of their sicknesses and cleansed of their sins if they had been willing to create a disturbance like the blind man. None of them were willing to ask Jesus for what they considered to be “an impossibility.” Looking back on it, that blind man who was given back his sight doesn’t seem quite so crazy, right?

Out with the old, in with the new…

I also think the last sentiment Chambers reflects above is DEFINITELY worth noting. Can you imagine a life where we are SO closely identified with the Lord that our old life doesn’t even matter anymore? A life where you and Jesus have such a strong connection that your past actions and decisions are irrelevant, that the sins of your former life are forgotten and that everything in the world that kept you away from the Lord is lost to the past? Of course not. It seems impossible.

Which is exactly why we should be asking the Lord to get us to that point. Think about how much more enjoyable life would be if we were only concerned with God and his love for us. A little nicer than worrying about the stresses of our lives as they are now. At least, I believe that would be the case.

What do you think?

-Mike

Photo (“Stand Out”) by aeroix. Thanks!

My Own Little World

Posted
February 2, 2011
Categories
Uncategorized
Comments
0 Comments

My intentions are good, so why do I struggle? I want to serve, I want to help, I want to love. But I’m wrapped up in my own world, forgetting to consider others before myself. Jesus, change my heart.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Yasgzjc0w&w=370&h=245]

Is God’s Cell Phone on Vibrate?

Posted
January 15, 2011
Categories
Uncategorized
Comments
0 Comments

I’m reading a book called “My Utmost For His Highest.” It’s supposed to be a daily devotional thing, but I read it in chunks of like, 8 days at a time. Anyway, Oswald Chambers is the author and he brings up a lot of interesting points throughout. Most I agree with, some I don’t, but it’s all thought-provoking either way.

One of the random things he talks about is from a verse in Isaiah (Isaiah 40:26, to be exact) that reads:

Look up into the heavens.
Who created all the stars?
He brings them out like an army, one after another,
calling each by its name.
Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
not a single one is missing.

In the discussion element of this devotional, Chambers writes, “One of the reasons for our sense of futility in prayer is that we have lost our power to visualize. We can no longer even imagine putting ourselves deliberately before God.”

So here’s my question for all of us – myself very much included: When we’re praying, do we truly visualize ourselves standing (or bowing) before God? Or do we simply feel like we’re in a dark room, calling out to Him with the hope He’s hearing us? Because that happens to me, and my guess is that it might have happened to you once or twice as well.

But this is the thing to keep in mind: He’s always hearing us. He’s always there. As Hebrews 13:5b tells us, “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” Instead of talking to God as a friend, we call out to Him as if He can’t hear us or something. When really, that’s like desperately calling out to someone who is sitting next to you on the couch. They’re right there. There’s no need to panic.

From here on out, I hope you can try to treat prayer as if you are always in God’s presence. Because you are. He’s listening and waiting to hear from you. It’s not like He’s out of the house and you have to leave a message hoping He’ll call you back later. It’s not like He’s not out and about, not noticing his cell phone vibrating when you try to get in touch with him.

God is right there with you. Always.

{mike}

Photo by Oracio Alvarado. Thanks Oracio!

Lessons From Jericho

Posted
January 14, 2011
Categories
Uncategorized
Comments
0 Comments

I’m continually amazed at the richness found in scripture.  I feel as if I’ve read every word over and over a zillion times, and yet, God still manages to speak to me, to challenge me in new ways.

Today as I read through Joshua 6 once again, verse 2 nearly knocked me out of my chair.  The Lord tells Joshua that He has delivered Jericho into his hands…  Period.  All Joshua had to do was follow God’s plan.

If God doesn’t change (He’s the same yesterday, today and forever – Hebrews 13:8), then this principle applies to our lives too.  We have the victory as long as we follow God’s plan.

Stand firm on this truth, brothers and sisters.  No matter what battle you’re facing today, you are victorious in the Name of Jesus.

-Lindsie

God Cares About the Details

Posted
January 4, 2011
Categories
Uncategorized
Comments
0 Comments

Often times when I think about talking to God, I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I shouldn’t bother him unless it’s a life or death situation.  There are nearly 7 billion people in the world [at the moment I’m writing this] and he’s looking after them all.  Surely he doesn’t have time for the tiny details of my life when people around the world are in dire need of help.

So, I take care of things myself.  And I get stressed and worn out and things fall apart.

According to Luke 12:7, God even knows the exact number of hairs each and every one of us have at any given moment.  And anyone who would take the time to know something that trivial must care about the seemingly insignificant details of our lives as well.  This idea that God cares about even the most minute detail is something He’s been working on with me a lot lately.

To illustrate this better, let me tell you a story about one tiny detail that God was passionate about.  The idea of walking across the country wasn’t some crazy, hair-brained idea I concocted on my own.  It was a vision born nearly 11 years ago on the campus of Purdue University in Indiana during a national youth convention.

My life was impacted in countless ways during that week.  We heard some incredible speakers who loved God in ways I didn’t even know were possible.  But one speaker stood out among the rest.  The specific details of her story remain fuzzy, but her message gripped me.  She had been challenged by God to drop everything and walk from Washington (the state) to Florida.  She told us stories about God providing for her, using her, changing her.  She had been on the adventure of a lifetime and I wanted that so bad.

Since that conference, I have dreamed of a similar opportunity.  My heart longs to share what God has done in my life.  And to do it in a way that would challenge me so incredibly at the same time just seems hard to pass up.  So for 11 years, I have been determined to make my own journey across the country.

As we began putting this blog together, I thought continually of the inspiration behind this vision and I was haunted by the fact that I could not find the woman who’s story has had such a tremendous impact on my life.  For years, I have googled just about everything imaginable that could possibly lead me to finding her name, but I got nowhere.

And then about a month ago I found a journal I had written the in July of 2000.  My heart nearly skipped a beat as I anticipated this possibly containing my answer.  I flipped through page after page until I found it.  There it was, Judy Howard (now Peterson).  I contacted the Evangelical Free Church of America to confirm that she had in fact been a speaker at their national conference (I’m not sure why I didn’t think to contact them in the first place), and they verified that it was her and helped me get in contact with her.

Without the knowledge of her name, we would have continued just the same.  It was not information that was imperative to our trip or our message.  It was a tiny detail in the big picture of life.  But God cared about it.

Psalm 139

1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.

-Lindsie

1 … 3 4 5