trust

Wisdom Gained from My Gaming Days

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Yeah, I’ve done my share of PC gaming in my time. Not recently, but I have spent time in front of the old PC in the non-productive world of playing video games.

My favorite is still Wolfenstein. It’s an old-school first-person shooter where you have to escape by killing a bunch of Nazis. It was a great stress reliever and a great way to take my mind off real life for a while.

I confess that I figured out a way to cheat the game and give me unlimited life and ammo. I made it through the entire game, but somehow the thrill was lessened by the knowledge that I was guaranteed not to lose or be killed by Nazis.

Life is that way, too.

Many times, we play only when we know we will win. We only place safe bets. In a world where winning is everything and failure is anathema, we want to be assured of guaranteed success before we even start.

But, as I have come to learn, true success can only come when failure is a very real possibility. You can’t ever really win if you were never in danger of losing.

Some of life’s greatest lessons come through losing and spiritual growth and change come many times through failure and the refusal to let that failure be final in your life.

I have played it safe for too long. I haven’t taken risks and I have had chances I didn’t take because my fear of failure was bigger than my faith.

Success isn’t the best thing. I think stepping out in faith is, even if you fall. The real victory is taking that first step into the unknown without any assurances that the ground will hold you up. It’s the willingness to keep taking that first step after so many times of falling down and failing.

Success is knowing that God is on your side, knowing that He won’t ever leave or forsake you, knowing that He who began a good work in you will complete it in Jesus.

I think it’s high time I took that first step . . .

A Vacation From My Problems

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

I’ve come up with a revolutionary new way to take a vacation. It goes like this:

1) You don’t show up for work. If you’re working, it’s not a vacation.

2) You stay home. You don’t spend insane amounts of money on plane tickets or gas or hotel rooms or any of that rubbish. You stay home, sleep late, go wherever you want, whenever you want.

I’m thinking of calling it a stay-cation. Catchy, eh? It’ll be the next big catch-phrase that all the hip young kids will be dropping in their sentences from now on.

The best kind of vacations are the free ones anyway.

The best kind of vacations are the ones where you get a break from everything that wears you out and holds you down. Like fear or doubt or worry. Like concerns about the future or haunting memories of the past.

I have a fantastic vacation package deal for you.

Tomorrow is the start of your vacation. Whatever is in your past is past. Whatever fears controlled you yesterday can’t touch you today. Whatever doubts you had are losing their hold on you.

Jesus promised that for those who believed that perfect love would cast out fear. He promised that to those who love Him He would work everything out for the good. He promised that every morning His mercies are new and His faithfulness is still great.

Your vacation is a clean slate. It’s freedom from the burden of trying to undo all you did wrong yesterday. It’s liberty to live today with no baggage.

Your vacation is a chance to be whatever Jesus wants to you be, to go wherever He leads, and to serve Him in the faces of every one you meet. It’s an opportunity to be blessed in giving yourself away, to find that you are now a conduit of blessing to others.

Your vacation starts at 12:01 am.

P.S. You still have consequences from past decisions and troubles to come, but you’re not held captive to them anymore. You’re free to face them as a blood-bought redeemed child of the King. You’re free in the knowledge that ultimate victory is yours. Just thought I’d add that in there for clarification.

As always, thanks for your  comments, especially the ones that point out to me my blind spots. It’s always good to get a new and fresh perspective on things every now and then.

Singleness of Purpose and Action: A Confession

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It’s time for another one of my soul-cleansing confession blogs where I ‘fess up to messing up. Better that than me eventually winding up on Jerry Springer right after the gay, cross-dressing nympho Quakers. That would be awkward.

Lord, I confess that I’ve spent way too much time and energy striving to be noticed and liked and appreciated. I haven’t spent nearly as much time trying to be faithful and righteous and God-honoring.

I confess that I’ve attempted to impress others with my Bible knowledge, yet I’ve hardly picked up my Bible except to parade it around so that others think of me as oh-so-very-super-spiritual.

I confess that I’ve been trying to knock down the doors that You closed on me for a very good reason. I’ve been fighting You for something I don’t really want rather than taking what You give that I need (to borrow from the great theologian Rich Mullins).

I confess that You’ve become a means to my own ends instead of my Ultimate End and Joy.

I confess that I’ve trusted in what I think and what I feel instead of trusting in what I know to be true of You and Who You have proved Yourself to be to me over and over. I’ve listened to my fears way too many times instead of waiting for the Still Small Voice that says good things about me and speaks peace into my chaos.

I confess that I have put myself in the spotlight that only You deserve and my goal has been for others to make much of me instead of making much of You.

I confess that I am weary from chasing rabbit-holes and dead end paths and roads that go nowhere but lead back to themselves. I confess that I have lost my first Love.

Help me to hunger and thirst for Your Word more than any meal and to seek You with all my heart and soul and strength and mind.

Help me to have a singleness of purpose and of action so that people see in me what it looks like to truly honor God and they find out the greatness of this God and are drawn not to me, but to Him.

Chances are, this is your prayer, too. Chances are you’ve fallen into the same trap of self-worship that I have. I hope you know that you’re not the only one who struggles with this from time to time.

My hope is that we can encourage each other to follow hard after Jesus and to seek purity of heart in everything we say and do.

Amen.

Death and Taxes

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 4 Comments

Today’s blog is by a special guest, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As far as the taxes are concerned, good luck. I got mine done early this year and I’m grateful to have that behind me.

Here’s what Bonhoeffer had to say about the subject of death, expressed better than I’ve ever heard it or read it before:

“No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward to being released from bodily existence.

Whether we are young or old makes no difference. what are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal? That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up – that is for young and old alike to think about. Why are we so afraid when we think about death? … Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.

How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?

Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.”

Trust

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 4 Comments

Trust is so easy to talk about, but not as easy to live out, particularly in the arena of faith.

I pay all sorts of lip service and sing about how much I trust Jesus, but in the moments when I can’t see my way, that trust is hard to find.

It’s in those moments when friends seem most distant and my dreams seem unreachable that I find out how much I trust and in what or whom my trust is placed.

If I’ve learned anything lately, it’s that God is trustworthy. God alone is trustworthy. If I put my trust in those around me, they will let me down. If I put my trust in an expected outcome, it either won’t come to pass or I will get what I sought after only to find it wasn’t what I really wanted after all.

Jesus alone has been worthy of my trust and proved Himself to me over and over. He has a history of coming through for me in just the right moment, when I needed Him most but often expected Him the least.

So I ask you? Do you trust Jesus? Do you trust Him in the dark as well as in the light? Do you trust Him when everything in you is telling you not to?

Maybe you think you can’t. Maybe you can’t find it in you right now.

Maybe the only thing you can do is simply say the words, “Jesus, I trust you with my life.”

They might sound phony in your own ears and you might not feel any differently. Keep saying those words over and over. Make them the mantra of your heart.

If you don’t have the whole faith thing figured out, neither do I. We mess up more often than not in this walk toward maturity in Christ and often turn to anything and everything but Jesus in our neverending search for meaning and significance and fulfillment.

I may not always trust what I see and feel. I may not trust in my own abilities or in the way I’m going. But I can most assuredly trust in the One who is leading and know that He will never lead me astray.

So can you.