hope

Faith in the Waiting

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’m revisiting season 3 of The Chosen in anticipation of the new season premiere in February. I just finished the episode where Jesus has a talk with Little James about how God has chosen not to heal him but is sending him out to preach and to heal.

Jesus says that the testimony of Little James’ faith in the midst of his suffering is a greater witness than if he had been healed. God is trusting Little James to be faithful for a little while until the full and final healing comes in eternity.

How many of us are waiting? How many of us have desired that God should make us healed and whole but have yet to see it? How many have prayed for the healing of others and not seen the answer they prayed for and desired so earnestly?

If God granted us everything we ever wanted, our faith would seem like a natural response. It’s only when we hear the words not yet to our petitions, when we don’t get what we ask for, that trust shows itself as supernatural.

The prayers of the saints throughout history has always been along the lines of “Lord, I trust You, no matter what. Use me however You see fit wherever You see fit for as long as You see fit. Have Your way in me, no matter the cost.”

That is the prayer that God honors. That’s the prayer of lives who leave a legacy of faith behind for us to follow.

So you and I can rest in the promises of God even in the waiting and know that whatever God withholds is only because He has something much better in mind that we are not yet ready to receive. Best of all, what we find is that more than anything God could give us apart from Himself is God giving us Himself completely.

Resting, Not Rusting

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“To wait upon God is not to sit with folded hands and do nothing, but to wait as men who wait for the harvest. The farmer does not wait idly but with intense activity; he keeps industriously ‘at it’ until the harvest. To wait upon God is the perfection of activity. We are told to ‘rest in the Lord,’ not to rust” (Oswald Chambers, The Place of Help).

I love that image. Waiting on the Lord is like a farmer waiting for his crops to be ready for harvest. He has to prepare the soil to receive the rain so that the seeds will germinate and grow. There is no amount of idly sitting by with folded hands hoping for a good harvest.

While we may not know the outcome of what we’re waiting for, we at least know something that God has placed on our hearts. We know one step of obedience to take. We also know that it’s not until we stop taking about obedience and finally obey that God reveals the next step and illuminates the next part of our path.

May we be faithful to wait well and not idly. May we learn to rest in the Lord, not to rust.

No More Fear

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ The psalm does not pretend that evil and death do not exist. Terrible things happen, and they happen to good people as well as to bad people. Even the paths of righteousness lead through the valley of the shadow. Death lies ahead for all of us, saints and sinners alike, and for all the ones we love. The psalmist doesn’t try to explain evil. He doesn’t try to minimize evil. He simply says he will not fear evil. For all the power that evil has, it doesn’t have the power to make him afraid” (Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark).

I used to be terrified of the dark. I had to have a night light or some other kind of light so I wouldn’t be completely in the dark, because that’s where the monsters lived. At least that’s what I told myself. More truthfully, it’s the unknown that I was afraid of.

But the older I get and the more I know of God, the less reason I have to be afraid of the dark. I still get the heebie jeebies when I’m in the dark sometimes, but I know there’s no real reason to be afraid. I know that with one click on a flashlight or one tap on my flashlight app, all that darkness goes away without a fight.

The Bible say not to fear the one who can kill the body, but the one who can destroy the soul. I take that to mean that anything other than God is no longer a threat or a reason to be fearful. I know that God is for me and has promised to never leave me nor forsake me, much less destroy my very soul. So I have no reason to fear.

Of course, the default setting for most of us is fear. It’s not like we make the conscious decision to be afraid. It’s our bodies’ reaction to certain stimuli like a perceived threat. Sometimes, especially when we’re tired, it’s easy to let anxiety get a foothold.

But that’s when all those promises of God come in handy. That’s when it’s helpful to have a storehouse of memorized Scripture to draw from when those fearful moments come. That’s when you need people around you to speak life and peace over you.

A good attitude to take when scary things happen is that the worst that can happen to me is that I die and go to be with Jesus. Anything less than that is doable. And nothing can separate me from God’s love or cause Him to stop loving me, so I know God is with me no matter what. And God is with those I love.

That’s when evil and the dark lose their power to make me afraid.

My Big Hike

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Normally, my friend and I meet at Radnor Lake State Park and choose one of the trails to hike while discussing all sorts of random topics (and of course throwing in bad puns wherever appropriate).

Today, I went solo for the day. I challenged myself that I could hike both the Granier Ridge Trail and the South Cove Trail (the two difficult hiking trails at Radnor).

Halfway through Granier, I thought I’d made a serious mistake. I was wheezing like a 90-year old and it was all I could do to keep putting one sandaled foot in front of the other.

Still, I persevered. An persisted. And I didn’t give up.

At some point, my strength revived. I got that proverbial second wind. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as hikers’ high (similar to runners’ high), but I think I might have experienced that at some point.

The key to it all was that I never quit. I did take a short break on the second trail.

At the end of the day, I tallied over 22,000 steps, according to the app on my Apple Watch. That’s a lot of steps.

The old adage remains true. Every journey of 10,000 (or 22,000) steps begins with a single step. And each and every step counts, no matter how hesitant or small or feeble.

Every journey of change also starts with the smallest of steps. All God needs is the most hesitant of agreements and He can still bring about the most amazing transformations. All He’s looking for from you and I is the “I believe. Help my unbelief,”  as a good place to start.

Jesus looks at you right now right where you are and asks, “Do you really want to be healed? Do you really want the brand new world of uncertainty that comes with change and transformation?”

Oh, and yes, my feet hurt. I suppose that’s a given.

 

A Song of Hope for Those Who Wait with Heartache

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment
“Walking around these walls
I thought by now they’d fall
But You have never failed me yet
Waiting for change to come
Knowing the battle’s won
For You have never failed me yet

Your promise still stands
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness
I’m still in Your hands
This is my confidence, You’ve never failed me yet

I know the night won’t last
Your Word will come to pass
My heart will sing Your praise again
Jesus You’re still enough
Keep me within Your love
My heart will sing Your praise again

Your promise still stands
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness
I’m still in Your hands
This is my confidence, You never failed

Your promise still stands
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness
I’m still in Your hands
This is my confidence, You never failed me yet

I’ve seen You move, You move the mountains
And I believe, I’ll see You do it again
You made a way, where there was no way
And I believe, I’ll see You do it again

[x3]
I’ll see You do it again

Your promise still stands
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness
I’m still in Your hands
This is my confidence, You never failed

Your promise still stands
Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness
I’m still in Your hands
This is my confidence, You never failed me yet

And You never failed me yet
I never will forget
You never failed me yet
I never will forget” (Do It Again, Elevation Worship).

Very rarely does a worship song bowl me over anymore, but this one just about did. I’ve never resonated with a praise song’s lyrics like I did this one.
Granted, I’m not there now, but there have been times in the past when I would have seriously questioned whether the writer of this song had been reading my private journal. And I don’t even have one.
My prayer is that the words to this song wash over you and that God speaks though this song as powerfully to you as He did to me earlier today.

Open-Ended Hope: A Guest Blog Post by Henri Nouwen

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“We lived in a world where people don’t know much about hope. We know about wishes. The whole Christmas period is full of wishes. I wish this, or I want that. It’s very concrete: I want a toy or a car or a new job. These are all very specific requests. But hope is precisely to say, ‘I don’t know how God is going to fulfil His promises, but I know that He will, and therefore I can live in the presence with the knowledge that He is with me.’ I can then know and trust that the deepest desires of my being will be fulfilled. This way keeps the future very open.

Hope has nothing to do with optimism. Many people think that hope is optimism, looking at the positive side of life. But Jesus doesn’t speak like that at all. When Jesus talks about the future or the end of the world, He describes wars, people in anguish, nation rising against nation, and earthquakes. There’s no place where Jesus says, ‘One day it will all be wonderful.’ He talks about enormous agony, but He says, ‘You, you (my beloved ones) pray unceasingly that you will keep your heart focused on Me. Stand with your head erect in the presence of the Son of Man. Don’t get distracted by it all. Remain focused.’ Don’t think that things will clean up, and finally there won’t be any more pain. Jesus is saying that the world is dark, and will remain dark.

     If you live with hope, you can live very much in the present because you can nurture the footprints of God in your heart and life. You already have a sense of what is to come. And the whole of the spiritual life is saying that God is right with us, right now, so that we can wait for His coming, and this waiting is a waiting in hope. But because we wait with hope we know that what we are waiting for is already here. We have to nurture that. Here and now matters because God is a God of the present. And God is God of the present because He is God of Eternity.

     Hope is to open yourself up to let God do His work in you in ways that transcend your imagination. As Jesus said, ‘When you are young you put your own belt on and went where you wanted to go. But when you grow spiritually old, then your stretch out your hands and let others and God lead you where you rather wouldn’t go.’ That’s hope, to let yourself be led to new places” (Henri Nouwen).

Keep hoping, not because everything will work out exactly like you want it to, but because God is working it all out for His ultimate glory and your good.

Life Lessons from Round 1 of the NHL Playoffs

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I confess. I had little to no faith in my Nashville Predators to be able to beat those mighty Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the NHL playoffs.

I boldly predicted that Chicago would take the series in five games (and I thought I was being generous to Nashville by giving them that one game). The regular season series between these two teams hadn’t gone well for the Preds. They managed to win that first game, but after that it got ugly.

I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.

My Nashville Predators not only won the series but they swept those mighty Blackhawks. For the record, no 1 seed has ever been swept out of the first round in the 100-year history of the NHL. Nada.

I wonder how many of us have given up on a dream because we’ve already decided before we begin that it’s a lost cause. We’ve convinced ourselves not to even bother trying because it can only end in abject failure.

With God all things are possible.

Do you really believe that?

Do you believe it not as an abstract generality but as a specific reality meant for you?

I know that God’s not a celestial genie giving me whatever I want whenever I want it. Some of God’s best answers to prayer are no because that means a bigger and better yes is following, something I would never have dared to dream.

I also know that God is able. I’ve said it before (and credit again goes to Pete Wilson for this one) that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God.

I’m hoping my Preds keep winning. It’d be awesome to see Nashville bring home the Stanley Cup (although that’s still a long shot). That kind of hope is along the lines of I hope I win the lottery.

I’m hoping God will keep His promises toward me and always do what’s best for me. That kind of hope is certain and secure, as sure as Jesus who made them is alive and sitting at the right hand of the Father.

Next time I might have a little more faith in the home team.

 

Hope

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Hope is one of my favorite emotions because of its humility.
It’s not like gladness or joy, which stick around just for the good stuff.
Hope is my heart’s missionary. It humbly seeks fear and shame and hurt and befriends them.
Hope enters the very dustiest parts of my heart, cleans out the cobwebs,
and whispers of the promise of eternal perfection . . .” (Maggie Lindley)

“Do not forget to rejoice, for hope is always just around the corner. Hold up through the hard times that are coming, and devote yourselves to prayer” (Romans 12:12, The Voice).

Don’t lose hope. God is at work. The best is yet to come.

The Church as a Refuge

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking lately about the whole refugee crisis. I’ve also been putting some thought into what my pastor said about the church being a refuge. Who better than to show hope to refugees than people whom the Bible calls aliens and strangers in this world who await a coming Kingdom?

The body of believers should be a place where people can go to escape from the fallout from the lies that society tells people about finding inner peace and fulfillment through outward change.

It should be where people go to find God and find the hope of salvation offered in the person of Jesus Christ, not more condemnation for lifestyle choices. It should be where spiritual transformation happens and not mere behavior modification.

I noticed today that when Jesus talked to the woman at the well, He didn’t force her to change her lifestyle before He offered the living water to her. He didn’t make her go end her relationship with the man she was living with who was not her husband.

He simply offered her a gift that would change her life forever if she took it. After all, it’s the Gospel that changes people. It’s what changes peoples’ hearts, which in turn leads to changed lives.

The Church has been guilty of putting up barriers between people and the Gospel almost from the very beginning. The people who need Jesus and the Gospel most are often the ones who feel the least welcome inside our doors.

The Gospel is for everyone. Thus, the Church is for everyone.

 

Hope Is a Revolutionary Patience

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up” (Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life).

Whatever it is that you’re waiting for, never lose hope. Don’t quit now.

Remember that in hope, what matter isn’t just what you get at the end, but what you become in the process of waiting. Sometimes, the enduring is what makes you ready to receive what it is that you’ve been hoping and waiting for.

So my word to you is this: keep waiting and hoping.

God will either grant you what you desire or give you something much bigger and better than your mind can yet conceive or comprehend.

I’ve learned in all my years of waiting that the best outcome is that you find that God Himself is enough, with or without whatever you hope to get in the waiting process. God is enough.

So don’t give up. Let God have His way in you and let hope flourish in you during the waiting. It will be worth it in the end.

“Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love” (Romans 5:2-5, The Voice).