The Weapons We Use

I am grieving. I know that many of you are grieving as well. We look around at our world and see that evil is becoming not just accepted but exalted in our society. We see it destroying our families, creating intense pain and hopelessness for those we love, and for some of us it looks so big…so overwhelming that we feel helpless. I want to share with you what God has been speaking to me over these past few weeks as I struggle with these same thoughts.

I was reminded that about nine or so years ago, I was thinking a lot about spiritual warfare. I don’t remember the exact situation I was dealing with at the time, but based on what I remember about that stage of life, I’m certain it was some variation on the themes of depression, hopelessness, and shame. One day while praying, I got the distinct picture of a child standing on a mound of fire ants, trying furiously to stomp them off of her legs and fight them off while her father was right above her waiting to lift her out of the danger and pain she was experiencing. She was so focused on how big the threat and danger was to her in that moment, that she couldn’t see her father waiting to rescue her from the threat. That picture has been helpful to me in times when I am tempted to see the problems of my life, or of my world, as bigger than the great solution of God’s salvation and redemption. So, how do we focus on God’s salvation and redemption when the evils of this world feel so immediately threatening to us? I think we have a clear outline for how to reorient our hearts and shift our focus to the good and beautiful God in 2 Chronicles 20.

The account in 2 Chronicles is one where God allowed the attack of the enemy against the nation of Israel whose leader at the time was a righteous and God fearing man. Sometimes God protects us from being touched by evil in our lives, and sometimes He allows it so that His mighty salvation can be more revealed to us. In this account, the King (Jehoshaphat) responds to the threat of the enemy with prayer and fasting. V.6-9, 12 is a beautiful picture of reorienting the heart from fear to the exultation of God’s salvation.

                  “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms and nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your Name, saying ‘If calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment, or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your Name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us’…O our God, will you not judge them. For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do but our eyes are on you.”

Later on, in the same chapter (vs. 21) we see a second way that Jehoshaphat responds to threat of evil. Instead of appointing his mightiest warriors to make up the frontlines of the battle, he appoints singers who are to exult the name of God in the face of the enemy instead. God fought the battle for the nation of Israel because His people sought Him through prayer, fasting, and worship. God became the focus of their hearts, not their fears or worries about the problems they were facing.

There’s a song titled “Surrounded” by Michael W. Smith. There aren’t many lyrics at all in the song. It is a statement made over and over about reorienting the heart to remember we are not surrounded by the enemy (which is often how we feel) but, we are (in reality) surrounded by God, and that the worship and exultation of God is our mightiest weapon in spiritual battle. I want to share with you another song that has been a helpful tool in reorienting my heart. It’s a song that is very dear to me and my brother, and it comes straight from Psalm 145. It helps me to exalt God in the midst of any situation or struggle and it shifts my focus from the problem to God’s great solution of salvation and redemption.

Psalm 145 – The Modern Post

Let prayer, fasting, and worship be the weapons we use. Let our hearts be reoriented to see the might of God as unfathomably greater than the troubles of this world…

John 16:33b “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

—Lindsay Thompson

January's Promise

It’s an early morning, frigid and blustery outside my cabin. The awakening sun is chasing the stubborn, frosty mist out of my woods, dragging behind it a brilliantly blue sky. A robin cheerily bobs about the frozen grass and leftover patches of glistening snow in my back yard. I smile, wondering what he’s doing here. Doesn’t he know it’s January?

January.

Off with the old. On with the new. A fresh start. A gut-it-out resolve. Goals. Change. Fixing the messes and broken places of yesterday. Beginning again. Getting it right.

A glimmer of hope, however elusive and fragile it may be, flickers inside each of us. Maybe this year will be different. Maybe this year I will be different—fulfilled, purposeful, peaceful.

And big business is on to us, ready to exploit our innate yearning to change up the past and begin once more. Sales circulars and stores are jammed full of exercise equipment and home organizational paraphernalia, not-so-subtly hinting to us that we should drop some blubber and clean up our clutter as the year commences. The promise seems to be, somehow, that thinner thighs and alphabetized cupboards will fix us or satisfy our desire for a new and improved 2019. The commercial world capitalizes on this January mindset, one we all embrace at some level, consciously or not.

Some of us write our new goals down so we can hold ourselves accountable to them. We even solicit friends to help us stay with it. We purchase self-help books or join the gym or scan the want ads or sign up for an online dating service.

Others make a mental list they will push through alone. If they give up and quit, no one will be the wiser.    

Some desperately resolve that this year is going to be, has to be altered, but they don’t have a plan in place and may not know where to even begin to find whatever will bring them that something they know is missing.

Unhappily, some don’t even try. Why bother? Nothing satisfies. Nothing works.

Sorry to say, having a buff body, living in a showplace, finding a new set of friends, reading the right books, having a diversified portfolio, or even landing that dream job probably won’t bring you the lasting happiness and contentment that your heart aches to apprehend.

Whatever we do and however we do it, January is the month we gaze into an almost frightening expanse of 365 days. These days endlessly stretch out before us, the boxes on our calendars nearly all empty. Though some have given up, the vast majority of us have determined that something has to change; we will try to do better, to be better, and to make this year better than last, a year where we will find our elusive purpose and meaning.  

And our success is dependent, for the most part, on what we fill those boxes with, how we choose to spend our precious minutes, hours, and days, on what or whom we think will make our lives better.  

Sadly, that’s where the problem comes in.

We’re prone to make poor choices. Too often we expect the wrong people and the wrong things to give us life, to affect the change we need, to rescue us, to fix us. We cram our calendars full of futile and hollow relationships and activities, searching for genuine fulfillment, joy, and purpose for our existence. We know we were made for more—much more. But…

Happy New Year! Right.

Paul Tripp would say, and I agree, that this problem is sin. For one thing, sin causes us to be self-focused, making all of life about us, our needs, wants, and feelings. It’s a miserable life of jealousy and discontentment. But there’s more.

Sin also blinds us.

“It causes us to look horizontally for what can only ever be found vertically. So we look to creation for life, hope, peace, rest, contentment, identity, meaning and purpose, inner peace, and motivation to continue. The problem is that nothing in creation can give you these things. Creation was never designed to satisfy your heart. Creation was made to be one big finger pointing you to the One who alone has the ability to satisfy your heart. Many people will get up today and in some way will ask creation to be their savior, that is, to give them what only God is able to give.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Psalm 73:25-26).

“These are the words of a man who learned the secret to contentment. When you are satisfied with the Giver because you have found in him the life you were looking for, you are freed from the ravenous quest for satisfaction that is the discouraging existence of so many people. Yes, it is true that your heart will rest only ever when it has found its rest in him.

“Here is one of the most beautiful fruits of grace—a heart that is content, more given to worship than demand, and more given to the joy of gratitude than the anxiety of want. It is grace and grace alone that can make this idea of peaceful living possible for each of us. Won’t you reach out today for that grace?”

Won’t you start off this brand new year knowing that, because of God’s extravagant grace, you can finally find all that your heart has been searching for all year long?

Don’t keep scratching around like that sadly mixed-up and out-of-place springtime bird in my yard, searching and striving for something he will never find.

Let 2019 be the year you discover your identity, your purpose, and your satisfaction in your loving and true Savior.

Make space on your calendar for spending time with him. Get to know him intimately. Marvel at his beauty, his goodness, his greatness, and his glory. Revel in his grace to you.

Now that will be a really Happy New Year, won’t it?  

(Quotes from New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, Paul Tripp. January 6)           

 A great book to put on your calendar as a must-read every day to keep your thinking straight!

—Eileen Hill

Will 2019 Be What I Want?

It is not unusual to approach the new year asking ourselves what the new year will bring or would it bring what I want. Circumstances can change, but what if they don’t? What if they do? Is there something better than circumstances?

I have to admit that right after Christmas I started to feel like I was ready to move on or out of the holiday season. Have you ever felt this way? I am thankful for every opportunity I had to be with family and friends and to focus on beautiful truths behind Christmas. But something was feeling like..ok, I had enough! So I began searching for a place in God’s Word, the Bible, to help me think about the future and the New 2019 Year. The Holy Spirit led me to Psalm 16.

What can we find in Psalm 16 that could help us think more clearly about circumstances in the New Year? Glad you asked!

Here is my attempt to capture the significant thoughts I found:

1. A personal, honest prayer where we recognize that God is the one who can “preserve” us

2. The negative promise that sorrows will increase for those who look for life outside of God

3. A profound affirmation that the Lord can be our satisfying “portion”, our “cup of blessing” and that He is the one who “holds our future”

4. That the boundary lines have fallen in “pleasant places” and that in Him we have a “beautiful inheritance”

5. A personal promise from the Lord where He commits Himself to be our “counselor”

6. The firm assurance that we “will not be shaken” because “He is at our right side”

7. An unmistakable anchor-like promise that He will not “abandon” us

8. That He “will make us know the path of life”

9. That in His presence we will find “fulness of joy” and “pleasures” forever

10. And…that these realities in a sense are offered to us for eternity!

So, what if my circumstances do or do not change in 2019? You are guaranteed a person who in real locations and time will be with you. He will offer you all the realities listed above. In fact, He will be actively doing these things on your behalf. 

When King David, the author of this Psalm, said “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure,” he was pointing to the experience of this personal God and Lord in his life—not to a change of or changeless circumstances. So as we consider the New 2019 Year let us consider what or who is going to be our hope, and let us be intentional to usher and acknowledge the one who is above, under and within our circumstances working out good things!

Have a hopeful New 2019 Year!

—Diego Cuartas

Resets and Breakthroughs

January 1 brings many different things for many different people. Maybe it marks a new beginning for some of you, exciting new ventures or projected goals with great intentions. And for some, it may bring just a continuation of the same, nothing much changes but the date.

For me, it started with viral bronchitis, double pink eye and my first visit to Urgent Care! I left there with four medications and my first inhaler ever. Way to start the new year, huh?!? I wish I could say that was the worst of it. No, it continues from there. But before we unpack it all, let's do a short review.

Eight Years Ago

As some of you may know, I have had a chronic health condition for the last eight years that began due to a failed knee replacement at that time. The surgeon did a phenomenal job, but my  body developed a collagen disorder in response to the traumatic surgery. This has caused some significant issues in my life. I walk on two forearm crutches, and my body creates an abnormal amount of scar tissue in various parts of my body which results in a lot of inflammation, high levels of pain, fluctuating body temperatures and edema among many other things.  In order to control all these symptoms, I have to take a whole regimen of medications every six hours to control my symptoms. It has been an eight year process of trying to find the right medications, in the right combination to work well with my body chemistry. Definitely not an easy task.

For all of these  years I have seen many doctors who find my case absolutely fascinating but are not able to offer any helpful advice or suggestions. They simply see an unusual presenting problem and the “med student” inside of them comes out. They get excited about the mystery of it all, but that is not what I am looking for. I am looking for answers. So each time my heart rises thinking, “Maybe this doctor will know, or at least offer another piece to the puzzle,” but no, unfortunately it is a dead end many times. Just another inquisitive doctor.

Two Weeks Ago

I did have an exciting thing happen in this long difficult journey about two weeks ago. As a matter of fact, it was the last two weeks of December. My wonderful Pain Management doctor, Maryann Macci, reported that she was excited to try a new medicine with me. I was willing to try it, with a guarded heart I might add.  The last three years have been a trial of at least 15-20 new medications with high hopes that it would be the answer but after three days it would not be effective. So back to square one of what to try next. That process alone was very difficult. Getting myself geared up to have a medicine finally be the one that could get my body under control, only to find it either caused migraines, a rash or had no effect at all was very hard. So, just like the doctor process, I have had to walk very guarded with new medications as to not have my heart fall so many times.  

With that said, she told me what the new medication was and how to take it. I then called the pharmacy and since it was a specialty drug, they had to order it in. I got excited when the email came through that my Rite Aid script was filled and ready to be picked up. I went to get it and it was free! I had spent so much money on medications throughout the year, I actually had a credit so all my meds were free for November and December. Praise God!! I read the instructions and took the medication. By the second day I noticed a huge difference in a good way. My body had stopped hurting so bad, TKR leg wasn’t constantly swollen and my body temperature didn’t vacillate so much! It was amazing! I actually felt like I got my life back. I was so very thankful to God! This was such a breakthrough for me after so many people praying for me for so long. Finally a medicine that was controlling this disorder. The search for answers was over and finally, finally, finally I found the right combination.

January 3

I was due for my Pain Management visit, and I could not wait to see her. I exclaimed, “We found it, Maryann!! I danced, the best I can with one leg, around her office as she laughed and was so happy for me. It was a Praise God party!! She went ahead and refilled all of my meds and I left, so thankful that the search was over. I no sooner get to my car and called my pharmacist to see when I could pick everything up and he said, “The copay is $450.00”. I was stunned. My insurance did a reset on January 1st, so my $2000.00 deductible was back into the mix now.  I asked for him to repeat it to make sure I had heard correctly. And then I replied, “I can’t take it.” I was utterly devastated.  I left the doctor’s office in tears, got to my office and wept. And wept….. I made phone calls to my doctor and the insurance company throughout the day to get answers. All day, and subsequent days to follow, I had many conversations and tears with God, always remembering He is a good Father, a loving Father and a merciful Father. But, I also was very angry, confused and scared. I told Him I couldn’t understand why He would allow such a thing to happen- allowed me to experience a new way of life for two weeks and then allow it to be taken away. I didn’t understand. What was it all about?

So, as I was doing a few chores around the house this past weekend, I felt led to send out an email to my prayer warrior team. Whenever major things are happening in my life, there are times the Holy Spirit will lead me to gather my thoughts and notify my prayer team to have them pray for a specific thing. This was one of those times. I needed a breakthrough. I needed a quick breakthrough at that as I only had one day of medication left. I typed it out, explaining the situation and hit send.  The very next morning, I received a text from a beautiful couple who knew of my situation and it stated that they WANTED TO PAY FOR A ONE-TIME REFILL FOR MY MEDICATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD BROUGHT THE BREAKTHROUGH! Yes, it’s one month’s worth, but it gives me the month to see how else God wants to move more mountains and perform more miracles.

I am so incredibly humbled by this act of kindness. I am so incredibly thankful to God. He is a good Father, a loving, merciful Father. He is a compassionate Father. He sees me, He sees YOU! He knows YOU!

So that’s how my first week of 2019 unfolded. My hope for you would be that you’d find this true story interesting, encouraging and even  challenging. But most of all, my hope would be that you would hear an invitation. An invitation to talk to God yourself about those areas of your life that need a breakthrough, a miraculous change. The Bible says this about Jesus in the book of Isaiah:

Isaiah 61:1-3 1The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

Once again, He is a good Father, a loving Father, merciful Father. He is a compassionate Father. He sees YOU! He knows YOU! He hears YOU! He LOVES YOU!!

Be blessed friends and thanks for reading,

Lois Robinson

Learning

It’s always helpful to be reminded of things I don’t know, don’t fully understand or have perhaps forgotten.

Like the other night when I was talking to my son in Ohio, and I was observing that no one could lose me in my house; all they’d have to do is follow the oxygen tube, because I’d be right there, connected to the end of it. Of course I reminded him of what a pain in the neck it is, getting tangled around my ankles when I turn around, getting caught on the rocker in my bedroom, switching to my portable everywhere I go! And that sometimes I am so tempted to leave it in the car when I’m just running in to a store briefly. I don’t do that; it’s just a measure of my frustration.

At which point he reminded me that when brain cells don’t get enough oxygen, they die. And then he told me something I didn’t know: I’ve been on 02 for years, but only at night; it’s just the last few years that it’s been 24/7. The NEW thing he told me was this: that before that, my kids saw that I was GRADUALLY getting less sharp, but when I went full time, I snapped right back to my normal self! No wonder my daughter is so mindful that I don’t forget to return it to my nose. (Very helpful to live with a nurse; I need every one of those brain cells!) And this explains why it was my daughters, not my doctor, who decided I needed to start using it.

The very positive result of this conversation with my son is that I really will stop whining and take care of myself as best I can, and recognize the FACT that if my heart doesn’t get enough oxygen it might very well quit, sooner than it otherwise might! After beating faithfully for nigh onto ninety years, it certainly behooves me to treat it gently!

Then there is the story of the wooden puppet who wanted to be a real boy, Pinocchio, who had a cricket companion who was kind of his conscience and who constantly urged the puppet to do the right and safe and truthful thing, with varying success. We, too, sometimes need to be pointed in the right direction and encouraged to live well. But we, as believers, do not need a Jiminy Cricket to guide us. We are hugely blessed by God; we have a person, an actual part of God Himself living within us, ever ready to guide us, to give us understanding, to teach us, to remind us of all Jesus said. When Jesus was explaining to his disciples, just before his crucifixion, what would soon follow, he told them that when he was no longer with them, his Father would send them a helper, who would empower them and explain everything they needed to know, and especially remind them of everything he had taught them. What a wonderful gift! And that very same Holy Spirit actually lives inside us, eager to guide us in all we do! Read the Gospel of John, Chapters 14 &15. It’s fascinating to read all that Jesus says the Holy Spirit will do!

The problem with Pinocchio was that he didn’t always follow Jiminy’s advice! The little puppet had a lot of trouble telling the truth, and so every time he lied, his nose grew! Before long, his nose was quite a size! We’re fortunate that we don’t have the same result when we ignore or refuse the guidance of our Holy Spirit! We know very well that our powerful sin nature is still with us, and every day we make choices: whom will we follow? Sometimes we just get lazy, or self-centered, putting our own comfort before the needs of anyone else. We just neglect to do the thing that God has prodded us to do --- sometimes as simple as making that phone call or caring for someone who needs a little help. We just ignore the promptings of the Spirit.

And sometimes God sends us a human person, who tells us what we needed to hear. We need to listen.

So I pray that you and I, each of us, find sure peace in the joy of following God’s direction always. He loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die, to save us!  And as this Christmas season fades into the new year, do join me in determining to make every decision, every thought, every action one that will bring glory to our wonderful Father!

Norma Stockton