It’s easy to be intimidated and discouraged by the size of the mountain, isn’t it? Real mountains can be a pain, but those metaphorical mountains can seem impossible to overcome.
I was reading recently about Mount Everest and all those who have attempted the climb and died in the effort. They thought they were smart enough, strong enough, tough enough, etc., but the mountain proved to be too much.
Some obstacles in your life can seem like that. When you look ahead, all you can see is that mountain in the way. There’s no way around it or under it or over it. The thought of climbing it fills your heart with dread and fear.
But remember that every mountain has a maker. Jesus said that if we had enough faith, we could say to the mountain, be cast into the sea and it would obey. Basically, Jesus said that it’s not big faith that gets past the mountain but faith in a big God.
So don’t look at the mountain, but cast your eyes on the One who can move that mountain. Talk to the One who has already overcome all of death, hell, and the grave. What is it that you’re facing that is stronger than what Jesus has already overcome?
Mountains are scary, but remember that the taller the mountain, the better the testimony at the end.
“… just slipping a note to those in the thick of it who really need to know right now how this all works out, how today ends, how this week ends, how this whole shebang ends:
SPOILER: GOD WINS” (Ann Voskamp).
“No doubt about it! God is good— good to good people, good to the good-hearted. But I nearly missed it, missed seeing his goodness. I was looking the other way, looking up to the people At the top, envying the wicked who have it made, Who have nothing to worry about, not a care in the whole wide world.
Pretentious with arrogance, they wear the latest fashions in violence, Pampered and overfed, decked out in silk bows of silliness. They jeer, using words to kill; they bully their way with words. They’re full of hot air, loudmouths disturbing the peace. People actually listen to them—can you believe it? Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.
What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch? Nobody’s tending the store. The wicked get by with everything; they have it made, piling up riches. I’ve been stupid to play by the rules; what has it gotten me? A long run of bad luck, that’s what— a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.
If I’d have given in and talked like this, I would have betrayed your dear children. Still, when I tried to figure it out, all I got was a splitting headache . . . Until I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I saw the whole picture: The slippery road you’ve put them on, with a final crash in a ditch of delusions. In the blink of an eye, disaster! A blind curve in the dark, and—nightmare! We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing. There’s nothing to them. And there never was” (Psalm 73:1-20, The Message).
It’s easy to lose sight of the end when you’re stuck in the middle. When evil seems to rule the day, it’s hard to believe that God can ever set things right. It’s tempting to fall into a cynical view of “Well, that’s it. We’re done for. There’s no hope left.”
But just as Billy Graham said, I’ve read the last page of the Bible and I know it’s going to be fine in the end. Actually, more than just fine. It will be better than the happiest ending in the best book you’ve ever read. It will be like in the last book in the Narnia series where all that happened before was merely the title page and prologue, but heaven is where the real story starts and where each chapter is better than the one before.
The Bible says for those who are in Christ that whatever the worst that we can face is light and momentary compared to the joy that’s coming. Read that again. The absolute worst we can imagine ever facing is light and momentary compared to the joy that awaits.
Not that what we face isn’t very real and very scary and very awful. But the joy ahead is infinitely greater and longer and lasting. It will be like the joy of a new mother holding her child after the pain of delivery, knowing it was way more than worth it.
It will be way more than worth it when we get there.
“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy’s fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy’s flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust” (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are).
I’m not advocating for a kind of “let go and let God” passive approach to spirituality. I think in this case I need to let go of my way of thinking of how God should act. I should stop setting up boundaries to put God in so that He will act according to what I have set up as my standard for Him to follow.
I can trust that God’s ways are not my ways. I can trust that I would want what God wants if I knew what He knew. I would understand what He does if I could see the whole entire big picture from eternity rather than my own specific limited viewpoint. If my brain could comprehend the infinite, I could begin to think like God.
But I can’t and I’m not. “Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you’ve never seen” (Hebrews 11:1, The Voice).
I trust in what I can’t see and I believe what I can’t fully understand. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be faith. It would be seeing and understanding. But even if I have the teensiest amount of faith like that of a microscopic mustard seed, that’s enough.
This post is a bit outside my wheelhouse, so to speak. What follows is some good advice that I wish I had learned earlier (or maybe paid better attention to when someone else was trying to teach me). Some of these may be more applicable than others, but I hope they will all be usefulat some point in your life:
Don’t call someone more than twice continuously. If they don’t pick up your call, presume they have something important to attend to.
Return money that you have borrowed even before the person who loaned it to you remembers or asks for it. It shows your integrity and character. The same goes for umbrellas, pens, and lunch boxes.
Never order the expensive dish on the menu when someone is treating you to lunch or dinner.
Don’t ask awkward questions like ‘Oh, so you aren’t married yet?’ Or ‘Don’t you have kids?’ Or ‘Why haven’t you bought a house?’ Or ‘Why haven’t you bought a car?’ For God’s sake, it isn’t your problem.
Always open the door for the person coming behind you. It doesn’t matter if it is a guy or a girl, senior or junior. You don’t grow small by treating someone well in public.
If you take a taxi with a friend and he/she pays now, try paying next time.
Respect different shades of opinions. Remember, what may seem like 6 to you might appear as 9 to someone else. Besides, a second opinion is good for an alternative.
Never interrupt people while they are talking. Allow them to pour it out. As they say, hear them all and filter them all.
If you tease someone, and they don’t seem to enjoy it, stop it and never do it again. It encourages one to do more and shows how appreciative you are.
Say “thank you” when someone is helping you.
Praise publicly. Criticize privately.
There’s almost never a reason to comment on someone’s weight. Just say, “You look fantastic.” If they want to talk about losing weight, they will.
When someone shows you a photo on their phone, don’t swipe left or right. You never know what’s next.
If a colleague tells you they have a doctor’s appointment, don’t ask what it’s for, just say “I hope you’re okay.” Don’t put them in the uncomfortable position of having to tell you their personal illness. If they want you to know, they’ll do so without your inquisitiveness.
Treat the cleaner with the same respect as the CEO. Nobody is impressed by how rudely you treat someone below you, but people will notice if you treat them with respect.
If a person is speaking directly to you, staring at your phone is rude.
Never give advice until you’re asked.
When meeting someone after a long time, unless they want to talk about it, don’t ask them their age or salary.
Mind your business unless anything involves you directly – just stay out of it.
Remove your sunglasses if you are talking to anyone in the street. It is a sign of respect. Moreover, eye contact is as important as your speech.
Never talk about your riches in the midst of the poor. Similarly, don’t talk about your children in the midst of the barren.
After reading a good message, consider saying “Thanks for the message.”
APPRECIATION remains the easiest way of getting what you don’t have.
I am including the original post to give credit where credit is due.
A friend posted this. I stole it because it’s too good not to share. Plus, I’ve made it my own prayer going forward.
I saw Unsung Hero tonight, a movie about the Smallbone family who moved from Australia back in the early 90s. Basically, their original plans fell through and they had to learn to depend on God’s provision and timing.
Maybe it was God’s timing for me to see this movie at this particular point in my career transition. As any of you who have been in that place know, it can be stressful at times and discouraging at other times. It can be so easy to base your self worth on what you do for a living or how much you make a year or anything like that.
But God is teaching those of us in that process that who God says we are matters more than any job title or salary or car we drive or house we live in. In fact, what God says about us trumps it all. Only what God says matters.
God’s character and God’s promises are inextricably linked. What God does can’t be separated from who God is, and if it is God’s nature to love us sacrificially, then He will keep every promise that He has ever made to us. As a good father provides for his children, so God provides for His own.
I’m still trusting in the heart of God when I can’t see His face or feel His hand. I know He’s there because He’s said He won’t leave. Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.
I saw an Instagram post that basically said that sometimes delays are as much of God’s will as those things He allows and those He denies. He declared that when God makes you wait for something, either you are not ready for it or the situation is not ready for you to enter into it. The worst thing God could do is to give you what you want and the exact moment you want it the way you want it.
I’m so there. Being out of work for two months has felt like a delay. Trusting God in the middle of anxiety is difficult, but I’m learning more and more that God is faithful. Instead of pleading with God for a job, I’m thanking God in advance for the job He will provide in His own perfect timing. I’m grateful for the lessons that I can only learn in this season.
As much as I should know this by now, I need to be reminded that my identity isn’t in what I do for a living. My purpose isn’t bound up in going to a work environment for 8 hours a day. Being employed will not complete me any more than finding a spouse or anything else. I am already complete in Christ because of what He’s done for me on the cross. God still looks at me and says, “It is very good.”
God’s delays may feel like denials, but they only come because you’re not ready to receive what God is preparing for you. I don’t mean that a Maserati or a yacht or a super mansion is ready for you if you have the right amount of faith. I mean a future where you step into God’s bigger purposes for you and the world.
Easter is over, according to all the stores and calendars. There are no more cute little bunny displays at your local Hallmark or Cadbury eggs or wicker baskets at the grocery store. Seemingly just about everybody has moved on to the next big holiday, which I believe is Mother’s Day in May.
But for those who celebrate Easter as Resurrection Day, the celebration goes on. We know that Jesus is still risen and alive. Plus, if you follow the Book of Common Prayer you know there is still Ascension Day and Pentecost to come.
I’m not against all the Easter bunnies and baskets and Easter egg hunts and all the candy. I’m especially not against the candy. But when you reduce Easter to these symbols and turn it into just one day, it cheapens the meaning.
Just as the birth of Jesus ushered in a new way of counting the years (as we moved from B.C. to A.D.), so Easter is equally a marker in history where everything changed. Many Old and New Testament prophecies came to pass on that day.
I hope that we won’t go back to business as usual next Sunday. I hope we will retain the message of Resurrection Day through all the weeks and months to come. The worst moment, the worst day, the worst part of your life is never the final defining moment in your life because Jesus is alive and the tomb is empty. Your hope is never in vain because Jesus conquered sin, death, hell, and everything else that will ever come against you to defeat you.
Easter isn’t just a day but a mindset. As Pope John Paul II said, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
I did something new this year that will most likely be a tradition from now on. I went to see Andrew Peterson on his Resurrection Letters tour on Easter Monday. I’ve been to three of his Behold the Lamb of God concerts, but not one for Easter.
Of course it was amazing. Every part of it pointed to Jesus as the one who overcame death and the grave, the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. It helped me to once again put everything else into perspective in the light of the empty tomb.
I was captivated by the line of a song that mentioned the resurrection of daffodils in spring. That happens every year after all the trees go bare and the ground is barren during winter. Spring really is the perfect picture of the resurrection with all the flowers and buds coming back from a kind of death to full bloom.
I like spring, but I’m not a fan of all the pollen. But even that means that new life is coming, because all that pollen will germinate the seeds that will burst forth in growth and life. I think I can handle a bit of sinus overload if it means seeing the riot of colors that will follow soon after.
But all that points to the one day when those who have died in Christ will rise. All of the creation that was ruined in the fall will be restored and renewed. What seems so stressful and what keeps me up late at night won’t seem important in view of all the new life. In fact, I probably won’t remember what was causing me all of the anxiety.
Just as surely as spring follows winter, so will Jesus return in the same way He departed from the disciples.
“Is He worthy? Is He worthy? Of all blessing and honor and glory Is He worthy? Is He worthy? Is He worthy of this?
He is! Is He worthy? Is He worthy? He is! He is!” (Andrew Peterson/Ben Shive).
“They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, ‘Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up'” (Luke 24:5-6, The Message).
I heard an interesting definition of the word amazed that was used in another translation of this passage. Basically, the women had no category for what they’d just witnessed. They had arrived with spices and other essentials needed for finishing up the burial preparations for Jesus, only to find no Jesus.
Sure, they had seen Jesus raise other people from the dead. They had also heard Jesus’ own words about being handed over to sinful men, crucified, and being raised again. But those words seemed hollow against the reality of Jesus being dead.
Easter is nothing without a physical resurrection. If Jesus is only alive in our hearts, we might as well give up on the whole church thing and do whatever we want and live however we feel like. If Jesus is actually still in that tomb, then there’s no real hope and no real future.
So many other religions claim to offer a way of life and salvation, but all their leaders are truly dead and buried. Only Christianity can offer eyewitness accounts to a risen and living Lord. Only Christianity has a God who knows the way out of the grave.
That’s why Jesus could truthfully proclaim that He was the only way, truth, and life, and that we could only come to the Father through Him. He’s the only one still living to show us the way — to be the way. He’s the only one who actually took our place and paid for our sins.
The resurrection is the final validation of the truth of Jesus’ life and words. Based on what He said, He couldn’t just be a good man or a wise teacher. He’d have to be a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Those are the only options.
The empty tomb and the risen Jesus show that He is Lord of all.
“The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party, (b) a wedding, (c) a city, and (d) a concert. It would be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?
Think of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener’s good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half- waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming” (C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III).
Maundy Thursday is a good reminder of being in the not yet. On that day, all the hard and painful things still lay ahead. Jesus was getting closer to the cross. It was only a matter of waiting.
Sometimes, that waiting can seem like forever. In a sense, we’d almost prefer knowing the worst rather than not knowing at all. And for us, those old fleshly fears can creep up on us during the wait, adding to the anxiety.
But all this present suffering is temporary, just as the suffering of Jesus between Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Jesus was able to endure all that because of the joy that was set before Him that came on the other side of Golgotha. So we also know that just beyond our pain is a greater joy. Just on the other side of suffering is eternal peace.
We wait just as Jesus waited, knowing that beyond the cross and death was an empty tomb and the resurrection. We wait with hope — not a wishful thinking kind of hope, but a rock-solid certainty kind. The victory has already been won.
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