Abraham

Things I Love 9: This Series Is Getting Completely Redonkulous

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island hammock

I apologize for those of you who were anxiously awaiting the next installment of this series. Both of you.

I got off track in more ways than one, but now I continue this seemingly neverending series with #192.

192) A cool breeze on a hot and humid summer day.

193) Any time I get free food, even if it’s just a free dreamcone from Chick-fil-A (one of the perks of having the app foursquare on my iPhone!)

194) Knowing that even if the worst case scenario actually comes to pass, God’s taking care of me and everything will be fine in the end. If it’s not fine, it’s not the end.

195) The absolute magic of Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers.

196) Homemade bread.

197) Sweet potato french fries (I recommend Pucketts or The Pharmacy).

198) Knowing my family and friends are praying for me as I write this.

199) Being able to pray the prayer that never fails– Your will be done– and sincerely mean it.

200) Being okay after having my heart broken in a very failed attempt to take a friendship to the next level.

201) That the best things in life really are free.

202) GPS for those like me who are directionally-impaired.

203) Ice cold water on a hot day.

204) Unexpectedly seeing old friends at Kairos.

205) Having peace even in the midst of spectacularly blowing a friendship to smithereens.

206) When technology works like its supposed to.

207) Getting all green lights on my way to church.

208) That I am an heir with Christ and no longer a slave to fear but now possess a spirit of adoption and can cry, “Abba, Daddy” to the God and Maker of the Universe.

209) That low sexy voice you get when ever you have a cold or hay fever.

210) Hearing a favorite song at just the right moment.

211) The effortless artistry of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice.

212) That God hears my feeble prayers– and even my sighs and groans when I don’t have the words.

213) That God can use messes like Moses, Abraham, David, Peter, and (most amazing of all) me.

Something Borrowed, Something Blogged

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I got this out of a devotional called Streams in the Desert. It’s from July 26. I hope it speaks to you as loudly and profoundly as it did to me when I first read it.

Enjoy and thank me later.

“There are times when things look very dark to me–so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence–that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There is no patience so hard as that which endures, ‘as seeing him who is invisible’; it is the waiting for hope.

You have made waiting beautiful; You have made patience divine. You have taught us that the Father’s will may be received just because it is His will. You have revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

Give me this Divine power of Yours, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, “To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still.” I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope. –George Matheson

Strive to be one of those–so few–who walk the earth with ever-present consciousness–all mornings, middays, star-times–that the unknown which men call Heaven is “close behind the visible scene of things.”

By Faith

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I am an optimistic and positive person for the most part. I usually see the glass half full. Unless it’s when I’m really thirsty, then the glass is empty, ’cause I just drank it all.

Sometimes, I have serious doubts. Sometimes, it feels like my dreams and goals are just out of reach and nothing will really ever change. Sometimes, I’m not even really sure what it is I’m reaching for.

Everybody has those times, if they’re honest. Everybody doubts, everybody questions, and as the old R.E.M. song says, everybody hurts.

The question is, Will you still believe even when common sense tells you not to? Will you speak your faith even when you don’t feel it and the words coming out of your mouth feel fake and fraudulent? Will you still hold on?

The old cliche is true. It really is darkest just before the dawn. I’ve found that just when I feel like I’m at my lowest ebb, that’s when I see God moving in my circumstances and in my life.

The promises of God are just as true in the dark as they are in the light. He is just as faithful in the storm as in the sunshine. He is just as near when you can’t feel Him as when you can.

I’ve said it before many times, but it’s true. What you think may lie to you. What you feel may lie to you. But God won’t. Ever.

So many people in the Bible had times when they felt God’s promises were hopelessly out of reach. I think about David and Abraham as examples. David when he was running for his life from Saul and Abraham when he and Sarah were still childless and eligible for Social Security.

But they held on to the promises of God even when everything in them (and probably everyone around them) told them not to, and that faith was rewarded in the nick of time in God’s perfect timing.

May you and I hold on as tenaciously and as stubbornly as they did.

It will be so much more than worth it in the end.