relationships

True Intercession

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I love this idea of intercession: Intercession means that I am praying for some one else when that person can’t find the words for themselves. In a sense, it means I am praying their prayer to God and standing in their place when they aren’t able to stand. It means I am holding them up in a very real sense when I pray.

Intercession also means that I am believing  in faith for an answer for somebody else when that person doesn’t have the faith to believe for themselves. That God has given me an assurance for another that He hasn’t yet given to that person. Or maybe my own peace about that answered prayer for them will  lead them to be more confident and approach God’s throne more boldly.

Intercession means I am praying something for someone and believing for something in that person that they can’t see for themselves. I pray for victory over addiction, wholeness out of brokenness, healing from pain and tragedy, and anointing  for someone when that someone feels hopelessly bogged down in addictions, brokenness, pain, and tragedy and can’t see a way out. I like to believe that sometimes God has allowed me to see in faith a way out for them and to believe for them that they will overcome sooner than they think.

One way I’ve started praying for people is not so much with words. I visualize a small chapel with wooden pews and I see Jesus at the end by the altar. I see myself taking the person I am praying for down the aisle toward Jesus. I then picture Jesus embracing my friend and whispering words of comfort and peace over that person.

We are called to intercede for each other and to bear each others burdens. In a sense, to intercede is to carry someone’s burden. It means I will fight for you and speak your words for you when you can’t find the words. It means standing in the gap for you and praying without ceasing until I see God move in your life.

I would love to pray for any of you about anything at any time. Let me know how I can and I most certainly will not fail to pray for you!

Amen and amen!

Thoughts on Valentine’s Day

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Someone on the radio made an interesting correlation today. It was about how we as a society are pretty much unique in not giving much if any thought to any life beyond this one, thinking that this is all there is. We are also a society consumed with romantic love as a kind of salvation. Almost all our love songs speak to someone who can give us meaning and hope and make our lives make sense. How romantic love can save us. We are obsessed with the idea of falling in love.

Love is a great concept and a wonderful idea, but she makes a pretty poor idol. Love that we worship eventually turns to lust or hate or neediness or anything but the true love we think it is. But there is True Love that never disappoints or fails.

Jesus came as the perfect Embodiment of what Love really looks like. Every love song ever sung, every love sonnet ever compose finds its complete fulfillment in Jesus. He’s the one who truly gives meaning and hope and does more than make our lives make sense– He makes our lives shine!

Even the best marriages leave something to be desired, an ache and a longing that’s left despite all that we’ve been taught about how that special someone will complete you and bring you fulfillment. A sense of “Is this really all there is?” While marriage as God intended is a beautiful and poetic thing, it is a pale shadow of Christ and how much He loves His bride, the Church. True fulfillment and completeness comes in Christ and marriages find those things as the two draw nearer to each other by both passionately pursuing Christ.

The greatest love story ever told was when Jesus saw us from afar and set His affections on us. He set about wooing and winning our hearts by paying a price far beyond what He should have paid. The ultimate love song was a Man stretched out on a cross, blood pouring out, saying, “This much I love you.” It was His giving everything, holding nothing back, for you. For me. No greater love song will ever be written.

Know that today you are desirable, because Jesus desires an intimate relaltionship with you. Know that you are loved, with a fiery and untamed love much too big and too wild to have come from a merely human heart. Know that Someone is thinking about you today and that you matter to Him. You are wanted. You are loved. You are a treasure to Christ, because He gave you infinite worth when He died for you.

Let that be your Valentine. Jesus says, “You are Mine forever!”

Amen and amen!

Things I Can and Can’t Do

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There are some things I can’t do, shocking as that may sound to you. Here you were, thinking I was all perfect with my dashing good looks and dazzling personality. . . . I seriously digress. There are really some things I can’t do.

1) I can’t make anyone like me or be interested in me if they’re not. I can’t, and believe me I have tried in the past with only tragi-comic results to show for it.

2) I can’t do life through sheer willpower. As many times as I have steeled myself to be strong and independent, I have faltered in the fight and grown weak in the waiting. I don’t have nearly the strenth or stamina to do it alone. Not by a long shot.

3) I can’t guarantee that everything in my life will always stay like it is today. That all my relationships will still be intact and all my hopes alive and my circumstances unaltered. In fact, I really can’t guarantee anything except that change will come, ususally when it is not expected.

4) I can’t save myself from myself. I will always fall back on old fears and give in to temptations and believe the same old lies I have believed in the past.

What can I do? There are a few things.

1) I can be myself and let God bring me the people He wants to be in my life. I can enjoy those people while they are in my life and give them the grace to go when God calls them to a different path than mine. I can be the best friend to each of them while I am able and as long as God wills. I can be Jesus to them.

2) I can surrender my will to Jesus and make myself available to Him. I can invite Him to live His life through me and learn to use the power that raised Him from the dead as I face opposition and temptation. I can say YES to Jesus and give Him room to work in my life. All He needs is a place to start.

3) I can trust that God works all things, including changing circumstances and people, for my good and His glory. I can trust that He sees the big picture and is working for a Victory that is not just mine, but everybody’s. I can believe in faith that He is for me and with me all the way to the very end.

4) I can fall a thousand times and get back up and call it a victory. I can take 99 steps back and 100 steps forward and call it progress. I can believe what Jesus says about me instead of listening to the lies of the media, the world, and me. I can live as the Beloved of God, like I am already what He’s declared I will be. Like I am the way He already sees me.

I can’t be god. I can trust God. I can know that I am in good Hands!

Amen and amen!

So Blessed

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I am so very blessed that I am no longer under any sort of condemnation. If my heart tries to condemn me, I can take that to Jesus, who bore all my shame and sin and mess and forever removed the right for condemnation to speak into my life ever again. I am forever right with God and free and clear.

I am so very blessed that God has given me eyes to be able to look at my own life and see how intricately God’s grace and power have been running through all my days. I am amazed at how I haven’t fallen apart or given over to anxiety when I surely would have at this point last year. In fact, I am completely amazed at what God has been doing in me. It astounds me.

I am so very blessed that I have family and friends who love and support me and see the best in me, even when I can’t. I love the encouraging posts and texts that always seem to come at just the right time with just the right message that I needed to hear.

I am so very blessed that I get to serve at Kairos and Kairos Roots alongside people who inspire and challenge and bless me. I am showing up to serve and end up receiving so much more than I give. I am blown away by the godliness I see in the people around me. Hopefully, it’s rubbing off on me.

I am so very blessed to know that my Jesus loves me, that my Jesus is forever for me, and that my Jesus won’t ever ever ever ever give up on me. His love is changing me from someone unloveable into someone who can love unconditionally and uncompromisingly. What fear could never do, what hate could never do, love has done.

Why am I blessed so much when I don’t deserve any of it? I will never know, but I know that I am beyond thankful.

Amen and amen.

Say Anything

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“A spoken reprimand is better than approval that’s never expressed” (Proverbs 27:5, The Message)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of words to harm and to heal, to cut and to cure, to wound and to make whole. But more potentially harmful is the silence of words not spoken.

Always let the people in your life know that you love them. Always express that love in words and don’t assume they automatically know they are loved and how much they are loved. Tell them.

Always be thinking of ways to encourage and bless and lift up your friends. But don’t just stop there. Let those words of encouragement and blessing find an outlet, whether through a text or a post or through spoken words. Never assume that encouragement is not needed. You never know but that word that seems to you to not have much meaning can turn a person’s day around or change their outlook on their circumstances.

When a gentle reprimand is needed, don’t be afraid to speak the truth in love (with the key part being “in love”). I don’t want to have to guess if I have offended or bothered you. Tell me, so I can learn and not repeat the same offence the next time.

But definitely if you err, err on the side of the positive. Be as creative and free with words of affirmation and blessing as you can. I think for every negative word of correction you speak, you need to speak four positives into someone’s life.

Be sure to always look for the best in people, for the promise in their mess, the hope in their bleak outlook. Let them know that just as Jesus won’t ever give up on them, neither will you. Remind them often of their priceless worth in God’s eyes. Help them see themselves they way God sees them. I know, because those words have blessed and encouraged me beyond my ability to express with words. I want that same feeling for you.

Amen and amen.

Enjoying what you have

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I think about Edmund from the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and how his dreams of magical turkish delight ruined his appetite for good ordinary food. We are the same way.

We spoil good friendships with the opposite sex by wondering what would happen if we took the next step relationally. We ruin good conversations by always thinking back in regret or thinking ahead in anticipation. I personally have been too busy thinking of my next clever line to really listen to the other person and have hindered good conversation that way.

My advice? Be in the moment. Be all in the moment. Enjoy your relationships for what they are, not for what they could be. Don’t be anxious over thinking too much over what might have been or what might never be. Enjoy what you have.

I’m not saying to settle and never pursue something more. I am saying that friendship is a gift that is all too often overlooked and undervalued. Don’t rush past friendships, but linger in them until they grow deep. Don’t force a conversation or a friendship. Let it happen naturally. Keep your eyes open always and your ears attentive and your mouth shut. In other words, be much more intentional about learning to listen well and far less worried about what you will say or how you will say it.

I am no expert and I don’t claim to know people all that well, but these are things I have been realizing lately. Once you put aside obsessing over romantic possibilities and just learn to be the best friend you can be, the friendship blossoms. Once you put aside all expectations about what a person should or should not be and enjoy that person for who he or she is, you find much more in common and are blessed so much more by the relationship.

Single, married, divorced, widowed. It doesn’t matter. Learn to embrace where God has you and savor the moments He gives you with the people He  has placed in your life. Learn to laugh a lot, live in the now, and love others like God has loved you. And you will be fine.

Amen and amen.

Expectations

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

My expectations are this and only this: God will be faithful. People are people and are weak and fallen and fickle. I am one of those weak and fallen and fickle people. I should not expect from them what only God can do. I should not put my hope in people, because people won’t (and can’t ever) live up to such high expectations.

I can look in my own heart and see the condition of every human heart. We have such high ideals and such good intentions, but so often our feet stray from that path of good intentions and high ideals. We want to be good, but can’t. Only God can. Only Jesus can. And only Jesus in us can ever be good enough.

So I fix my eyes on Jesus. I pin my hopes on Him. I have high expectations that He will come through and do something magnificent with my life. I can’t help when my hopes get built up, but I can help where I take those hopes in prayer (thanks to a friend for that insight). I can help how I take those unfounded hopes captive and submit them to the authority and lordship of Jesus.

I would love to be married. I would love to have a girlfriend. Right now, I want good friendships with good conversations. But my hope is in God forming me into the right man to attract the right woman. My expectations are that Jesus will give me exactly what I need, will be exactly Who I need Him to be at all times, and will always do the very best for me.

I have to surrender my own expectations and hopes and dreams and trust that God has bigger expectations and hopes and dreams for me. Way bigger because He is way bigger, and His vision is so much more far-reaching than mine. Surrender is a hard, daily process, but Jesus is completely worth whatever effort, whatever blood, sweat, and tears it costs me. Even if it costs me my life, He is supremely worth it.

So I lay it all down in hopes of receiving a thousand times more both now and in eternity. And all that I laid down will seem so very small compared to all that I am gaining. If Jesus gave all for me, how can I hold onto anything and not give it back? Here, Lord, is all of me. Take it and break it and multiply it like the fishes and loaves and use it to bless the multitudes. Make my life a blessing to the world.

Amen and amen.

Yet Another Letter to My Future Wife (Something I Learned Today)

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Here I am writing to you again with this insight. The most attractive part of me and the best gift I can give you is my masculinity. Me being a man.

I don’t mean drinking a gallon of beer or wrestling grizzly bears in the wild or climbing Mt. Everest. I mean me being a spiritual leader who’s not afraid to stand up for what’s right, who’s willing to sacrifice for what I believe in, and one who will lead by being the best servant I can.

You are worth fighting for. Not me boxing someone for your hand, but me being willing to do whatever it takes to be a man who deserves you. You are worth me being humbled and broken. You are worth me having to relearn what I thought I knew already.

I don’t want you if I don’t have to pay a price. The higher a price I pay to win your heart, the more of a treasure you will be to me.

I just now figured this all out. I was afraid and co-dependent and needy nearly all of my life. Then a famous writer who signed my book put as the inscription “For a true warrior.” I do have what it takes to be a godly man and a great husband. I have everything I need in Christ, because He is in me and He is my hope of glory.

I am learning how to live this all out. I am learning how to be strong in all the right ways. I am learning that practically everything that the media and society told me to be attracted to in a woman is wrong, and that what really is attractive in me is Jesus.

I can’t wait to show you all this one day soon and to learn to love you better through all our years together. I can’t wait to see how I can release your true beauty, captivate your heart on a daily basis, and set you free to become all the woman God meant you to be.

But I will wait. I am learning to wait well and to be still and to rest in God’s promises. I think that’s called learning to trust. I pray you will trust God and wait well for me. I pray God’s best for you and I pray that one day I can be God’s best for you. Thank you for waiting for me.

Learning to wait

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I am learning to wait well. And notice I didn’t say I am learning well. I am slowly and haltingly learning how to wait expectantly and confidently. To wait well is to make yourself ready for what your waiting for while you’re waiting for it. That’s what I mean.

I am learning to be still. I am learning to quiet my mind and take those anxious thoughts captive. I am learning that most of the mistakes I am so worried about aren’t nearly as big as I had played them up to be in my mind. Most of the people I had convinced myself were so very pissed at me weren’t even mad at me at all or even close to offended. That facebook friend is still my facebook friend, despite all my imaginary scenarios of doom and gloom and defriending.

I am learning to rest. I don’t mean taking naps, but I mean to take deep breaths and focus on Jesus, who promised that if I only come to Him, He will give me rest. I want rest like in Psalm 131:2: “I’ve kept my feet on the ground, I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.” If I call the Prince of Peace Lord, you’d think I’d be better at letting His peace rule my heart. But I’m learning.

I’m learning to keep hoping when hope seems so very past tense. Like the movie Miracle on 34th Street says, “Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to.” I’m learning to believe even when every single voice in my head is telling me to do anything– post something, fix something, pray something– but believe.

I am learning that every set back is a step up, every failure moves me forward, and every disaster has the hidden designs of the plan of God hidden underneath. Being willing to look and sound foolish is the best way to grow up and to grow in faith. In that case, I should be a mensa-like expert and growing up and growing in faith!

Let God take you through the School of Learning to Wait Well and Be Still and Rest. You will find once your ceaseless activities and programs stop, God can really start using you.

That’s what I’m learning.

Amen and amen.

A prayer for my future wife

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 19 Comments

Here I am, thinking about you again and wondering if you’re thinking about me. I have come to the point where I am finally starting to give up striving and trying to make my own plans and my own timing work. I am starting to learn to rest my mind and my heart in God’s plan and His timing. As the name of the book I just got in the mail says, I Gave God Time. That’s all He needs to pull off the biggest miracles– time.

So I pray that your heart is at rest. That you are comfortable where you are and not striving like I have been most of my life. I pray your heart is captured and captivated by Jesus and that you are so enamored and enraptured by His love for you that He becomes everything to you and every other thing in your life falls back into its proper place.

I pray that you are fully coming alive to all that God made you to be. That you know where your beauty comes from and that you treasure your femininity as a gift from God. I pray that your loveliness comes from a Christ-filled countenance and a heart full of compassion and kindness.

I pray that your heart is being set free to love. That all your fears and insecurites are driven away in the face of the Prince of peace, and that peace will rule your heart and mind. I pray you look at every heartache and heartbreak as a means of molding you into the woman who will completely dazzle me.

Waiting is hard, but the longer the wait, the more we will treasure finding each other. I can’t wait to be your husband and do all I can to be a part of  unveiling your true beauty for the world to see. I am waiting for that day, letting God transform me into the man you deserve.

Until then, take courage, dear heart. The night seems long but dawn is just around the corner. Hold on.