Friday, July 31, 2009

Nonverbal Communication


The next thing to look at is how we send messages without speaking.


Consider the implications of nonverbal communication: Nonverbal communication is a language without words that sends messages about our attitudes, moods and feelings. Some of the channels are physical appearance, facial expressions, eye contact, body language, and proxemics (the distance between two people who are communicating). If someone has the choice to either believe your words they are hearing or the message they see your body is sending, they will ultimately believe the nonverbal message first.

So what is the implication within the body of Christ? I think on the literal level, we interact with each other all the time. And during those interactions, we are unwittingly sending perhaps unintended messages. Yes, it’s true that crossing your arms in front of you doesn’t always mean judgment – perhaps you’re just cold or don’t know what to do with your hands.

Let’s say someone has come up to you with a problem. Maybe it’s someone who you’re not overly anxious to spend time with. You want to be “Christian-like,” so you stop and pretend to be interested. As this person begins to get into it, you are unknowingly sending nonverbal messages: you have looked at your watch twice; you are beginning to move away, however slightly, from the person; you are periodically shifting your attention to those around you and as the conversation continues, it happens more and more; you lean away and have unconsciously begun to tap your foot. We seem surprised that this person abruptly ends the conversation and never seeks out our counsel again. We should not be surprised that the outward expression reflects the inward state.

If you think about the term “body language” and apply it to the body of Christ, there are some interesting things to think about:

1. Posture: this involves the movement and position of the body. Posture communicates things like respect, interest and openness to ideas. What is the “posture” of the body of Christ? As a group, what are we communicating to the world?

2. Hand gestures: these are movements of the hands, arms, and fingers and are used to describe and emphasize. What are the hands of the church doing? Are they reaching out or are they pointing in judgment?

3. Body gestures: these are nonverbal signals that are communicated by the moving of the body. Whether it’s nodding the head, using your mouth, or moving your foot, these movements can send either positive or negative signals. What is the world observing? How are the movements, speech or directions of the Church being perceived? Are they positive and uplifting or are they condescending and negative?

Considering the implications of nonverbal communication is a way for the body of Christ to examine their hearts and connect to a lonely world.

Father-God, what messages am I sending? Is my impatience and dissatisfaction with my own life translating to an impatience with those who need Your love and compassion? May the expression of my heart be reflected in the expression of my face.

Check out: Ephesians 3:14-19

Tuesday, July 28, 2009



I was looking through some of my old computer files and found a list that I had made to sum up a communications class I was teaching. As I looked it over, I began to see spiritual connections and implications, not only for our interactions within the body of Christ, but for our relationship with the Lord. Let’s consider them one at a time.

Practice active listening: Listening is different than hearing. I can hear the sounds you make, but miss the message because I am not making the connection. Listening actively involves effort and purpose – an involvement of your will. In the body of Christ, it is important to really listen to each other. Sometimes it’s in the door and out the door on Sunday morning. We pass each other, speak a few superficial words and leave. Now I’m not saying that we need to constantly engage in deep, intense conversations all the time. However, the times when we do make those deeper connections, it is necessary to not only engage our ears, but our wills and our hearts as well.

Actively listening to the Lord also involves an act of our wills. Oswald Chambers in the devotional My Utmost for His Highest, writes about this type of intimate hearing:

“If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God, by the devotion of hearing all the time. A lily, or a tree, or a servant of God, may convey God’s message to me. What hinders me from hearing is that I am taken up with other things. It is not that I will not hear God, but I am not devoted in the right place. I am devoted to things, to service, to convictions, and God may say what He likes but I do not hear Him. The child attitude is always, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant hearth.” If I have not cultivated this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God’s voice at certain times; at other times I am taken up with things – things which I say I must do, and become deaf to Him. I am not living the life of a child. Have I heard God’s voice today?”

Practicing this type of communication with others and the Lord makes it become part of who we are – not just what we do.

Father-God, have I heard Your voice today? May I actively listen to Your voice – through Your Word, Your Spirit, and through Your creation.

Check out: Deuteronomy 30:19B-20

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Back to the Beach


There’s nothing like spending time on the beach in the sun to make all seem right with the world. But we all have to return to the “real world” sooner or later. Coming home to our usual hectic lives can often suck the vacation calm right out of us.

This past week, I found myself almost restless with the overwhelming joy of God’s creation. I saw pelicans recklessly diving head first to catch a fish spotted from high in the air – dolphins twisting and jumping, slapping the waves almost joyfully as they seemed to dance around each other – sandpipers tip-toeing across the hot sand – and tiny crabs skirting the foamy current that washed up on the hard sand.

Our last full day at the beach was beautiful. At one point, I just had to get up and take off down the beach. I actually felt like skipping, but to everyone’s relief (including mine), I just walked and walked. I felt like raising my hands to the Lord and shouting at the top of my lungs, “You alone are worthy to receive praise. You alone are worthy.”

What could have inspired this intense desire to “shout and dance before the Lord”? As I look back on it, I think it had to do with a shift of focus. Even though I am surrounded by the wonder of God’s creation every day, I sometimes get blind-sighted by my busyness.

But when I let those things fall out view, even for just a week, I began to feel this joy bubble up in my heart.

Have you ever seen a picture where the image in the forefront is sharp and clear and whatever is behind it is blurry? Everything is still in the frame, but only the image in the front is in focus.
This is the image I get when I think about Paul’s admonishment to “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). This focus brings everything else into perspective – and the end result is this heart-skipping, can’t-stop-my-feet-from-moving kind of joy that strengthens and revives us.

Lord of all creation, Your majesty can be seen in all that You have made – the sparrows, the lilies of the field, the mountain tops, and the vast oceans. Your righteousness it reaches to the skies, Oh Lord – You who have done great things.

Check out: Romans 1:20

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Words of Wisdom


Words of Wisdom from Oswald Chambers


I came across these selections from the devotional My Utmost for His Highest. I had gathered them together to use at a retreat I held at my home in Vermont. The Lord brought 13 women together for a weekend of fellowship and rest. And even though there was only one bathroom for all of us, we managed to meet with God beside the Roaring Branch, as we sat in the warm October sun, amidst the changing fall landscape. I will never forget the peace and hope that came out of that time.

Spend a while with each section and consider how God might be calling you to a deeper peace. I will do the same as I spend time away with friends. This time the small, brisk current of the Branch and the carpeted landscape will be replaced with the rolling, ocean waves and the soft, warm sand.

Take your time - there are a lot of them. I can’t wait to hear what God has shown you.

1. His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process - that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.

2. It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials: through every cloud He brings, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in the cloud is to simplify our belief until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child - God and my own soul, other people are shadows.

3. God does not give us overcoming life: He gives us life as we overcome. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength. Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot, unless you will accept the strain. Immediately you face the strain, you will get the strength. Overcome your own timidity and take the step, and God will give you to eat of the tree of life and you will get nourishment. If you spend yourself out physically, you become exhausted; but spend yourself spiritually, and you get more strength. The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God.

4. God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christ’s life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s. There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after.

5. We are too much given to thinking of the Cross as something we have to get through; we get through it only in order to get into it. The Cross stands for one thing only for us - a complete and entire and absolute identification with the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing in which this identification is realized more than in prayer. The idea of prayer is not in order to get answers from God; prayer is perfect and complete oneness with god. We are not here to prove God answers prayer; we are here to be living monuments of God’s grace.

6. “Sell all that thou hast,” undress yourself morally before God of everything that might be a possession until you are a mere conscious human being, and then give God that. That is where the battle is fought - in that domain of the will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Himself?

7. Never allow the dividing up of your life in Christ to remain without facing it. Beware of leakage, of the dividing up of your life by the influence of friends or of circumstances; beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Nothing is so important as to keep right spiritually. The great solution is the simple one - “Come unto Me.” The depth of our reality, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is tested by these words.

8. Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peace. The complete life is the life of a child. The child of God is not conscious of the will of God because he is the will of God.
9. The phrase we hear so often, Decide for Christ, is an emphasis on something Our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him - a very different thing. At the basis of Jesus Christ’s Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace. The thing I am blessed in is my poverty. If I know I have no strength of will, no nobility of disposition, then Jesus says - Blessed are you, because it is through this poverty that I enter His Kingdom. Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.

10. Prayer is an effort of will. A secret silence means to shut the door deliberately on emotions and remember God. God is in secret, and He sees us from the secret place; He does not see us as other people see us, or as we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place it becomes impossible for us to doubt God, we become more sure of Him than of anything else. Enter the secret place, and right in the center of the common round you find God there all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.

11. There are times when our peace is based upon ignorance, but when we awaken to the facts of life, inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When our Lord speaks peace, He makes peace, His words are ever “spirit and life.” “My peace I give unto you” - it is a peace which comes from looking into His face and realizing His undisturbedness. Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of God’s providential permission, and having, as it were, turned over the boulders of your belief, are you still finding no well of peace or joy or comfort? Then look up and receive the undisturbedness of the Lord Jesus. Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to Him. Lay it all out before Him, and in the face of difficulty, bereavement and sorrow, hear Him say, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

12. Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. Be yourself before God and present your problems, the things you know you have come to your wits’ end over. It is not true that “prayer changes things” as that prayer changes me and I change things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man’s disposition.

13. Jesus Christ says, in effect, Don’t rejoice in successful service, but rejoice because you are rightly related to Me. The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful service, to rejoice in the fact that God has used you. When once you are rightly related to God by salvation and sanctification, remember that wherever you are, you are put there by God; and by the reaction of your life on the circumstances around you, you will fulfill God’s purpose, as long as you keep in the light as God is in the light. The lodestar of the saint is God Himself, not estimated usefulness. It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him.

14. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me? The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with him that Jesus Himself had.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Current of God


We live in turbulent times. The waves of economic and professional uncertainty, global tensions, and relational anxieties crash over us on a daily basis. Too often we are swept away by this confusing current and left in a state of doubt and hopelessness.

The other day, I started thinking about water and the similarities between how it reacts and how I react. I know – it seems strange, but think about it:
Water reacts to the variables that surround it. It becomes hard when the temperature drops, its currents become stronger when the wind rises, and it boils and evaporates when the heat is turned up.

So I just had to ask: Am I as unstable as water in my personal walk with God?

I asked myself:

Does my heart become hard and unyielding when there is nothing external to “heat up” my emotions?

Do I become double-minded and distracted when the conflicting voices of the world swirl around me?

And do I get agitated and angry when life becomes difficult and unpredictable?


Lord, bring me to a place where it is not a matter of what I should feel or who I should be, but to what I do feel and who I actually am. Stabilize my heart

Check out: Isaiah 40:3-5

Monday, July 13, 2009

Needing God: Part VII


Now that we understand that as humans we are naturally a needy species, what do we need? Who do we need? We need God. What is the answer for the problems we face as individuals and as a society? God.


I need God on every level - to repair the damage of the garden. I need God to fill me, to soothe me, to restore me, to direct and guide me. No one else or nothing else can replace the love and mercy of my heavenly Father. He knows the number of hairs on my head; He knows the motives behind my intentions; He knows my pain, my sorrow, my dreams, my failures in a way that’s free of human perceptions and preconceived notions and judgments.

So why do we ever believe that we need someone or something other than God? We say and believe we need more money, a better job, a newer car, a bigger house. The only need that should consume us is our need for more of God.

We spend so much time focusing on our external needs: I need to go to the grocery store, I need to clean the house today, I need to start coloring my hair more often, I need to ... we expend so much energy on the fleeting needs of our flesh, that we don’t seem to have the energy left to explore and pursue our need of God.

But who is God? We live in a world that has redefined God. Francis Schaeffer says that when we are left with only the word “god,” there is no reason not to cross out the word itself. What he means is that if the word god is an abstract, indefinable, subjective word, then God is no longer a personal creator who loves and sacrifices for His children. He is no longer the God of the Bible but just a concept that can be redefined according to experience and personal preference.

Who do we believe God is? Have we reinvented Him in any way? Do we view Him through the lens of the baggage of our experiences, our religions, and our traditions? When we separate God from how He is defined in His Word, we are not much different than the world.
Karl Jaspers, a German existentialist who believed that even though our minds tell us life is an absurd, we may still have some huge experience that encourages us to believe that there is a meaning to life - meaning derived from experience, apart from reason.

As Christians, we often inadvertently take the habits and patterns of the world to church with us. Do we feed our emotional needs by seeking the experience without the reason or content? Have we lived a life that says I need experience to know I exist instead of saying I need God because it is He that gives my life meaning?

If we have, we will be left with despair. Why? Because we have substituted the fleeting physical and emotional manifestations of experience for the eternal truth of a reasonable God who can be known through His Spirit and His Word.

It is only when we truly attach ourselves to His Word that can we tell the difference between spiritual experience and spiritual awakening.

I need God, you need God, we all need God. Simple words that carry a deep spiritual significance.

Lord of all my needs, help me to take the time, the opportunity to listen to the still, small voice. Give me rest in Your presence. I glory in my need for You. Clear away the worldly debris that has burdened and distracted me. In Jesus name, I embrace the freedom of Christ and stand firm in His love and mercy and grace.

Check out: Hebrews 13:8-9

Friday, July 10, 2009

Needing God: Part VI


But what does it truly mean to need God?


When I think about the word “need,” I consider it to mean “a necessity, a deprivation, something that absolutely required.”

The first aspect of human necessity is spiritual. On the most basic level, belief in God and an acceptance of Christ and His sacrifice is absolutely required. A rift was created by sin and the only remedy is to accept the provision, made by the only One who can bridge the gap. This inner need for God originated in the garden and was addressed and atoned for at Calvary.

This need is still present in every individual, waiting to be satisfied. I need God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - the initiator of my salvation, my mediator, my guide, my teacher - the satisfier of all my needs.

But there is also another aspect to need - a natural need for God. This need infiltrates every aspect of who we are and what we do; we not only need God for salvation and complete spiritual health, but we need God to have complete emotional, physical, professional, financial, intellectual health as well.

We cannot separate our deep, fundamental spiritual need for God from the rest of our needs. All of the education that I have gained over the past years is nothing, is rubbish unless I have made the connection between my intellectual “learning” and my spiritual understanding.
What have I spent my time, energy, and money accumulating? Temporary, carnal, self-directed things that will burn up in the fire? Or have I understood that my inner need for God needs to fuel, supply, and direct my outer needs of God.

Have you ever heard someone infer that a Christian’s admission of their need of and for God was a sign of weakness? I have. What they don’t realize is that as humans it is a natural state of our humanity to need: when we are born, we need to be taken care of, we need food to grow, air to breathe, love to survive and thrive.

As much as this country was built on Christian principles, this country was also built up by and infused with a spirit of independence and rebellion. We come from a culture that looks down on the admission of need. Not only do we carry this cultural bias, but we carry our own individual bias against need that is formed by our environment and our experience.
Remember that sin and the lie of a half-truth about God and His Word will distort our perception and our judgments. Sin will turn a want into a need and will create its own set of rules and demands. Become aware of how influenced we are by our perceptions. We live either in the light of perceptions that are God-based and spirit-directed or in the shadow of our perceptions that are world-based and self-directed.

Oh, the power that perception can have over the way we live our lives. How do we perceive ourselves? Something as simple as saying me and God instead of me in God? Do you perceive that you are a body with a soul or are you a soul with a body? Just words, but they can reveal deep beliefs about who we perceive ourselves to be.

We need to separate ourselves from the remnants of our experience and bind ourselves to the truth that we are a new creation in Christ. I should glory in my need for God on every level and understand the impact of a life fully dependent on the Father for fulfillment, justification, and direction.

Do I need God? Desperately. In reality, will that need ever diminish? Never, but my perception of that need can.

Father-God, renew a steadfast spirit within me. I need You, Lord. Not just for eternal life in the unseen realm, but for life in the here and now.
Check out: Psalm 116

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Needing God: Part V


The last perspective to consider is “they.”


They need God: the same caution needs to be applied when speaking about people in the context of “they.” Ever think, “Boy, do they need God!”

We need to examine our attitudes and our hearts when considering the needs of a group. When we come to Christ, we do so with our personal biases intact. And that includes how we feel about certain groups. When we stereotype others and reduce their humanity to a “them” and “us” mentality, we begin to lose sight of God’s unlimited love and grace for the individual.

As we grow in our understanding, we need to be willing to discard anything that is contrary to God’s Word, lay it at the feet of Christ, and allow Him to create a spirit-directed base to our thinking. God cannot bless or anoint that which is not His.

God did not intend for His children to merely have a form of Him, but all of Him. 1 Timothy 3:5 speaks about “having a form of godliness but denying the power within.”

If we aren't careful, our foundation becomes experiential - built with cultural and traditional practices and habits instead of spiritual principles, which are built on the Word of God, the sacrifice of His Son, and the humility that comes from a right understanding of a personal need for God.

I, you, he and she, we and they all need God.

Father, You have made me and You have sought me. Bring me into a right understanding and perspective. Let me see myself and others through Your loving eyes.

Check out: John 3:16

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Needing God: Part IV


The next perspective goes from the singular to the plural:


We need God. There is a collective need for God that requires special consideration. How do we interact with each other? As a church? As a family? What are the special needs of the group and how are they different from the singular need?


First, and most important, unless every member of the “we “group is a full-fledged member of the “I” group, there will be discord. In order to be able to function in any kind of group, each person who claims to know God and represent Him needs to seek that deep, independent relationship with the Father; otherwise, we have a tendency to want to either get our needs met by the other members of the “we” group or to exert our control over those we feel are slacking.

To be effective, we need to be of one mind and one spirit; we can’t do that unless we are individually committed to God on His terms.

Group dynamics can be difficult to maneuver through. Personalities flair, especially when the group is formed for a purpose. Even some of the disciples had trouble with understanding how “God first” affects their relationships with others (Matthew 20:20-28).

The premise of “we” needing God is that there needs to be a sensitivity when we get together, not to point fingers and judge who is or isn’t right with God, but to understand how our individual relationship with the Lord affects others. We do not exist in a spiritual vacuum – we are light – we are salt.

Father-God, beyond my own individual need for You, I realize that when we gather, we need to seek Your face together. As we submit to You, give us one heart and one mind.

Check out: Acts 2:42-47

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Needing God: Part III


Next, what if the focus is on our unique human identities?

he/she needs God: Our unbiased Lord’s offer of salvation and grace is not just for men or just for women – it is for everyone. However, we need to understand that because God initiated gender when He created us male and female (Gen. 5:2) in the garden, He embraces those differences within us.


So what is the significance of the “he/she” need of God? It seems that within our human natures, there is a gender-specific need for God for us to be able to fulfill our natural and spiritual roles in a balanced and godly way.


Women are more than just female humans: we are mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, aunts, grandmothers. Men are more than just male humans: they are fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, grandfathers.


So what does it mean to need God as a mother? Or as a wife? How about as a husband? Or an uncle? These roles that very often define our attitudes and behaviors can be ministries through which we express God’s heart to a lonely and hurting world.


If we keep the responsibilities and the demands of those unique roles apart from God, we often fall into living a conventionally dull and routine life. Instead of allowing His Spirit to ignite those seemingly ordinary aspects of our relational selves, we settle for a “business as usual” state of being.


Perhaps the question is whether we compartmentalize God, keeping Him out of certain areas of our lives, especially the parts that we are good at. When we allow God to meet us on our most basic levels, we begin to understand just how deep and how wide His love is for us.

Creator of all, I come to You as You made me – and I bring all of the roles that my life is expressed through. Sanctify this life – it is Yours.

Check out: Hebrews 13:20-21

Monday, July 6, 2009

Needing God: Part II


The next aspect of personal needing for God considers the “you” perspective.

2) you - need God. Have you ever said to someone, “You need God?” How did you say it? “Boy, do you need God.” There needs to be caution in our attitudes when we actually say to someone, “You need God.”

Should we say it? Absolutely. We are commanded to speak the truth, and there is nothing more fundamental than telling someone that they have a need for God. But when it’s a “You need God” statement, the “speaking the truth in love” principle needs to be in place.

Don’t you find it’s always easier to see other people’s needs easier than your own? We know when a friend needs God; we know when a co-worker needs God, and we’re great at knowing when our spouse needs God.

A good principle when we feel the need to tell someone, “You need God?” Allow the Spirit to echo back the words to remind us that it is us who need God as much as the person we are telling. A word that is infused with truth, love and humility is a word that can be blessed and anointed.

Humility - funny thing about humility. I was thinking the other day about it and what my perception about humility really was. Literally in Scripture it means to be humiliated. Ever been humiliated in the world and had it been a good experience? I had to consider the possibility that I had carried my personal distaste for worldly humiliation into the kingdom and had shied away from learning the full extent of spiritual humility from God.

God needs for me to understand that he cannot truly and completely lift me up to where I can offer hope to others if I do not first trust Him enough to offer up my flesh to be humbled or humiliated. When the fleshly part of me is brought low, my spirit-man can rise up.

Humility seems to be the key when considering how other individuals need God. Jesus taught this, and we can clearly see it by the way He lived His life.

Father-God, I lay down myself down before Your throne of grace. Give me a burden to share Your love with others. Show them through me that You are the answer for their need.

Check out: James 4:10

Friday, July 3, 2009

Needing God: Part I


Need for God runs deep. As Christians, we all have a desire for others to come to a saving knowledge of this need – and beyond the knowing, the committing. We say things like, “They need God,” but if we stop and meditate on that phrase, we begin to understand the meaning of needing God.

A few years back, the Lord challenged me to consider what it really means to need Him on different levels. Let’s just think about the phrase above. What does it mean if you first place the focus on the first word – looking at the human connection to need?
As an English teacher, it occurred to me that “they” was a pronoun. What are some other pronouns? I, you, he, she, (no it because salvation is human-specific) we, you, they. Each one has its own unique significance. Let’s consider them one at a time.

1) I - need God. This is always the place to begin. It is always personal. It’s easy to say, “You need God,” but when I realize I need God, it turns everything around. It’s where our salvation began - we confessed our personal need for God to come in and change us.
If we’ve been saved for a while, it can become easy to become self-sufficient, to rely on past lessons, past convictions, and past victories.

When we admit daily that I am the one who needs God, I am put in the place where I can receive from God because I am the one going to Him, I am the one coming into His presence daily, I am the one deepening my walk with my Father, I am the one who has tasted God’s disciple when I have strayed, and I am the one who has personally tasted His pleasure when I have embraced His presence.

If the “I” is missing from the picture and my relationship with God is a “we” relationship, I will not only never be able to stand without support of others, but I will never have understood the privilege of knowing God the way He desires to be known.

Lord of my soul, I need You. I come alone into Your presence and lay my life before You. I understand the sanctity of the relationship You desire with me. I know I need to personally accept Jesus’ sacrifice. It begins here.

Check out: Isaiah 43:1-5

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Common Father: Part III


Continuing on with the idea of God as our common Father:

So what else do we see in this psalm that is relevant for us?

1) First the psalmist tells about state of being. What is state of being? It is where you are right now. In the psalm some wandered, some sat, some became fools and some, in the turmoil of their daily lives, became overwhelmed by the demands of their profession. Where are we right now? Where were we last year? Where do we want to be tomorrow?

2) The next thing the psalmist makes us aware of is state of soul. It is the state of your spiritual health. In the psalm some were hungry and thirsty, some were suffering in iron chains, some were tossed and turned by the waves that surrounded their boat, the vehicle of their profession. What is the state of your soul? Your spiritual health?

3) The third thing we’re made aware of is the consequence of need. In the psalm, some of their lives just ebbed away, some stumbled alone and endured a bitter labor brought on by their sin, some were unable to eat, some were at their wit’s end emotionally. Consider what is the consequence of your need? Are you feeling the weight that is a direct result of a distance from God? What consequence do we see played out daily in our lives?

4) The next aspect common to human nature is that whenever we experience a consequence that is unpleasant we will cry out to God. In this psalm, we see that they all cried out to God in their trouble.

It is a beginning. There can be no saving without a cry to be saved.


5) What happens next? God responds to the cries of His creation. What was God’s response? He brought out of darkness, he broke away chains, he healed, he saved, he stilled the storm, he turned the desert into pools of water, the parched ground into flowing springs - He lifted the needy out of their affliction.

God’s response - the same yesterday, today and always. God never changes.

6) So is that the end of it? God responds? The psalmist continues to instruct us because it appears to be a part of our human nature to cry to God as a reaction to our consequence and then when He responds and rescues us, we either forget His mercy or return to our sin. Why? It is because we have reacted to our consequence, not repented of our sin. So what is the last thing the psalmist explores? The response to God’s response.

7) After God rescues us, an outward action of an inward change must follow - we are told to give thanks, sacrifice, tell of his works with songs of joy, exalt Him in the assembly, and praise Him in the council of the elders. So many times we stop short and don’t allow the magnitude of God’s response to sink in and affect our thinking, our actions, and our habits.

My Rescuer and My Redeemer, I ask that You redeem the state of my very being and the state of my soul. I lay my needs before You and offer You glory and praise.


Check out: Psalm 107

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Common Father: Part II


I’d like to spend some time with Psalm 107 because in it, we not only see the common and unchanging attributes of our Heavenly Father, but how four different types of people in four different kinds of circumstances, whose actions produced four different consequences, ultimately shared in the common graciousness of God when they cried out to Him.


One of the first interesting and important things I noticed in this psalm that struck a chord in me was the mention of four common calamities of life:

1) banishment and dispersion: This is the place of distance and separation - a place where we are not only disconnected from friends and family, but from God. This is a place where there is an eerie silence of the soul and an emptiness of heart. Have you ever been there? I have. Are you there now? Know and believe that God is your common Father, and He will bring you back into a fellowship of grace and mercy.

2) captivity and imprisonment: This is a place of bondage - a place where God is not only not your master, but a place where you are helpless against your struggles, your addictions, your lusts, your emotions, and your human nature. It is a place of stagnant water that has poisoned your ability to let go of the past and go forward with God. Ever been there? I certainly have. Are you there right now? Put your trust in God, and He will break your chains and teach you what it means to be really free.

3) sickness and distemper of body: This is a place of physical weakness - a place of discouragement, a place of focus on your flesh, a place of limitation. Ever been there? Boy, have I ever been there. If you’re there right now - if your physical body is so sick and tired that you feel you just can’t go on, bring your fatigue and fear to your Father and draw near to Him and lean into His sweet embrace and rest.

4) danger and distress at sea: What does the “at sea” symbolize for us? How about danger and distress at the workplace. It’s what the people in Psalm 107 did for a living. They were merchants. For us it’s where we work, where we spend sometimes over 8 hours a day, and it can be a place of constant struggle, of trials and confusion - a place where we are faced with an onslaught of conflicting values. Do you face danger and distress at the workplace? Allow God to be your shield; put down your shield, your defenses that bear the crest of your human ability and potential and all the worldly safeguards we wrap around us like a blanket. Pick up the shield of faith that bears the crest of the kingdom of God and remember the battle truly belongs to the Lord.

Dear Father-God, You are Lord of us all. You see our common struggles, and You desire to grow us through them – to bring us closer to You. Help me to put off the ways of the old man and embrace the ways of Your Spirit.

Check out: Psalm 107