Tag Archives: circumstances

MOLLY AND ME – PERSPECTIVE

Christian Life, ,

MOLLY AND ME – PERSPECTIVE

Molly is approximately 28cm tall at the shoulder while I am 1.52m tall. It stands to reason, therefore, that her perspective on her world is very different from mine. She sees everything around her at almost ground level. That means that she see perceives her world and everything in it as much bigger than her! It’s no wonder she has a very loud and persistent bark! Everything and everyone unfamiliar to her is a threat to her safety.

Just recently, shortly after we went to bed, our world was rocked by a series of vicious thunder storms – five in a row. Poor Molly couldn’t contain her bark. She was thoroughly unsettled by hideous noises from above that she could not identify. She finally settled down after the noise abated and the rain fell in torrents.

Molly lives in a world of interesting and curious smells and sights at ground level. She explores her world mainly with her nose and eyes. Her hearing is acute and anything unfamiliar out of sight or smell is to be treated as an enemy and barked at until it is identified as friend or foe.

I am her security. Much of her barking also has to do with being my protector. When I am out and she is home alone, she considers herself to be off duty. She doesn’t move out of her bed, or from my chair or make a sound until I return. The moment she sees me at the gate, she comes alive. It’s as though she has an on/off switch which comes into action when my car leaves the property.

Actually, the roles are reversed. I am her protector. I have to monitor her on our walks because she doesn’t recognise potential danger. I have to watch that she doesn’t try to take on anything too big for her to handle, or eat anything not good for her. My perspective concerning her is far more accurate than hers!

This reminds me that my perspective on my own life is just as limited as Molly’s is on hers. My world view is full of dangers and insecurities as long as I look at life through my own eyes. Circumstances are either comfortable or threatening as I interpret them. This makes life very uncertain and the future unknown.

However, in Christ, my worldview is very different. I view everyday life, not from the ground up but from above. When I believed in Jesus and received Him as my Lord – my supreme authority – I died with Him and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, I was raised to a new life and seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph. 2:6).

Now I have a choice. I can continue to look at life through the lens of uncertainty and insecurity as the world does, or I can believe God’s word and live in the certainty that Jesus Christ is Lord regardless of what happens on the ground.

As for me, I have chosen to make God’s word the lens through which I view life and everything, good or bad it dishes up to me.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love                                       Him, who have been called according to His purpose. (Rom. 8:28)

Since you, then, have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:1-3).                                                                                 

Only through the worldview of Jesus’ sovereignty can I experience the peace of God that transcends understanding as I follow and trust Him every moment of every day.

In The Eye Of The Storm

Christian Life, , , ,

IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

I recently watched an interesting video on YouTube of a scientific expedition into the middle of hurricane Hugo to monitor and record what went on inside the hurricane which was rapidly approaching the east coast of America. The aircraft in which the scientists flew was a sturdy, four-engine propeller plane which had a fuselage strengthened to withstand the strength of the wind and the turbulence inside the storm.

As they approached the hurricane, preparing to fly at a mere 1,500 feet above the ocean, they were unaware that the hurricane had strengthened from a category three to a category five storm with wind speeds of over 250 miles per hour. The pilots had no idea that inside the storm was a circle of tornadoes which made it an even more dangerous mission.

To cap it all, they lost their number three engine because a fault in the engine had flooded the engine with fuel and caused a fire which threatened the aircraft. Operating on three engines inside a hurricane was almost suicidal but they had no option but to continue. After experiencing violent turbulence during which all the loose bits and pieces inside the cabin were being flung about, endangering the scientists, they flew through the wall of the hurricane into the perfect calm of the eye of the storm.

Although they had respite from the wind for a while, they had to face the fury of the storm a second time as they tried to find a way out of it. With the help of a military plane which accompanied them, flying at a higher altitude, they managed to find a less violent passage through the storm and out into a quiet and peaceful blue sky on the other side.

For the past year and a half, I have been living through a gathering emotional storm in my relationship with a friend. My heart cry to the Lord has been, “How do I use the weapon of truth rather than emotion as you did, Lord, without damaging the other person.” I felt bad that the truth was hurting my friend instead of helping her through her own issues. I felt restless and disturbed – the peace that was always so strong in my heart had left me. Did I do wrong? What could I do to fix it?

In prayer one morning, I became aware that peace had returned, and stronger than ever before. What had happened? Why did I feel so different when I had done nothing except plead with the Lord for wisdom and understanding? I had a sense that the Holy Spirit was affirming me and assuring me that I had not created a disaster as I thought, but that I had done the right thing.

That same day I watched the video of the hurricane and suddenly the light dawned. What I had watched was a visual aid of what I had experienced and what the Holy Spirit had revealed as I cried out to the Lord in prayer.

It is inevitable that we go through storms of one kind or another in our lives. Whatever the cause of the storm, it is important for us to understand what is happening, why we lose our peace, why we feel as though we are all alone and why God seems not to hear us or answer us when we cry out to Him. Let me list some of the important lessons this has had for me.

  1. Like the military plane that accompanied NOAA42 (the research plane), God is with us, but He can do nothing and say nothing until we are through the storm. This is a very important part of our journey because the devil would have us believe that God has abandoned us. He has not! He is there but He cannot interfere with the process because we must pass the test of faith alone.

 

  1. Without the process of going through the storm, we will never experience the supernatural peace of God that we break into when we are through the wall of the “hurricane”. This means that we must stay with it, no matter how long it takes because we will get through it into the calm of the eye if we persevere.

 

  1. Both the violent “winds” of our circumstances and the tornadoes of our emotions throw us around. Our misunderstanding and misinterpretation of God, ourselves and what is happening to us produce the emotions of anxiety, fear, or guilt which cause us to blame the devil or to mistrust God in our storm.

 

  1. Like the aircraft in the hurricane, we must keep going in the right direction – towards, not away from God. The pilots had to fly the plane at an angle to keep from being blown away by the wind. We must keep our faces pointed towards God no matter how we feel, fuelling our minds with His Word so that we are not thrown off course by our circumstances.

 

  1. Part of the journey is learning to deal with the accusation and condemnation of the devil. This is one of the real issues of spiritual warfare, not our circumstances, but our interpretation of them so that we mistrust the Father regardless of His promises. Satan will cash in and inflict as much damage as he can to malign the Father and cause us to mistrust Him. We must trust His perfect love, even though our circumstances seem to contradict what we want to believe.

 

  1. Our faith in God will be vindicated. When God is satisfied that we trust Him no matter what or how long, He will confirm that confidence by restoring His supernatural peace – so strong that our circumstances will no longer have any detrimental effect on us. The circumstances may not change or they may persist for a while longer but God’s peace will hold us secure, not matter what.

Do not be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. and the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7).

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

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The Seed Will Grow!

Bible Study, , ,

THE SEED WILL GROW!

 “His disciples asked, ‘Why did you tell this story?’ He said, ‘You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom — you know how it works. There are others who need stories. But even with stories, some of them aren’t going to get it:

Their eyes are open but don’t see a thing,

Their ears are open but don’t hear a thing.

“This story is about some of those people. The seed is the Word of God. The seeds on the road are those who hear the Word, but no sooner do they hear it than the devil snatches it from them so they won’t believe and be saved.

“The seeds in the gravel are those who hear with enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn’t go very deep. It’s only another fad, and the moment there’s trouble it’s gone.

“And the seed that fell in the weeds — well, these are the ones who hear, but then the seed is crowded out and nothing comes of it as they worry about tomorrow, making money and having fun.

“But the seed in good earth — these are the good hearts who seize the Word and hold on no matter what, sticking with it until there’s a harvest.'” Luke 8:9-15 (The Message).

When Jesus gives the explanation, the story is quite easy to understand. Just as it happens in nature, so it happens in people. There are different responses to the same message, and different outcomes.

Even among His own disciples there were different responses, although He was with them all the time and they watched and listened to the same teaching and the same demonstrations of the way the kingdom worked.

Take Judas, for example. How could a man who had been in close contact with Him for more than three years, turn on Him and sell His out to the Jewish hierarchy? What did he see but not see? What did he hear but not hear? Surely it was a matter of interpretation as well as expectation.

Why did Judas respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him? After the first flush of excitement, what was he expecting from this association? Did he have political aspirations, coupled perhaps with hopes of huge financial gain that made him stick with Jesus until he could see that there was nothing in it for him? Was he like the soil that was choked with weeds and had no place for the Word to take root?

Perhaps Judas had grown up in poverty and saw his opportunity to escape the cycle of need and want when he joined the group. Is that why he stole money from the common purse — just because he had access to more money than he had even seen in his life? Perhaps he came from a wealthy home and he just loved money. He loved to feel the weight of it in his bag, and to know that he always had resources to buy anything he wanted.

What about the other disciples? Jesus’ Word didn’t seem to make much impression on them, especially when the chips were down. They also had what we call “selective hearing”! There were certain things they chose not to hear at the time, especially when Jesus spoke about the cross. It took the terrible events of His arrest and death to open their eyes and ears to what He had been telling them for a long time.

But Jesus didn’t give up on them because He knew that the potential for growth and fruitfulness lay in the seed and when the time and the soil were right, the seed would germinate and grow. And so it did.

It’s like that in our lives too. We may be deaf to what God is saying to us, but He doesn’t give up because there will come a time when the hardness and resistance are removed and we become sensitive to what He is saying. He sometimes has to use drastic means to break up the soil, but He will do it so that we can become fruitful for Him.