A Reason to Rise

 

Monday, July 5, 2021

The Sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary.  Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will.  Isaiah 50:4

I don’t have to be reminded why I get up early; there are two reasons.  First, is that I find it hard to sleep more than about six hours; arthritis and age settled that a good while ago.  Second, sleeping has never allowed me to shake the desire to share God’s wakening messages.  I’ve never imagined myself a prophet, but I share Isaiah’s experience with this.  God woke the prophet to open his understanding to God’s messages.  Clearly God doing the wake-up call is superior to arthritic insomnia, and so Rocky Road Devotions became my early morning discipline during the last decade.  Unless the Lord sees fit to change that, I cannot imagine doing without these early morning meetings with the One who fills my soul with reason to rise.

While this daily meeting with God (and writing out what is impressed to me each day) has grown out of my need for deepening my relationship with the Lord, I have also found (to my unending surprise) there are others in that tribe who need the comfort of a daily word to start the process of daily discipleship.  The daily refreshing of praising God, and feeling His touch is a human need.

So, it doesn’t matter if the auditors be one or ten-thousand, it is God who awakens and speaks to my heart each day before daylight, and if He chooses to bless the weary wanderer on today’s bumpy road, it is my privilege to be part of the rock-removal crew.  It’s a large union!

For You Today

How do you feel about getting the day started?  I mean, everyone starts at some point, because we all sleep, and we all awake…until, of course, that day He takes us home. 

How do you get the day started?  Is it Good Lord…it’s morning.

Or is it, Good morning, Lord…where we going today?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

On Point

 

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.  Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable.  This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.  Romans 12:1-2

It happened again Saturday.  We were self-quarantining, so the much-dreaded putting-away of Christmas decorations was on the table.  Stuff had to be dragged up the ladder to be stored in the attic above the garage, so to get said ladder a small truckload of junk in front of the ladder had to be relocated.  Then, one noticed the car was in the way, so it had to be moved out.  Which revealed several yard tools that had never been returned to the garden shed.  While carrying those out of the garage I noticed the leaves covering the front yard, including the driveway.  So I dropped the tools off in the garden shed and returned with rake, blower, and leaf bags.  Putting away Christmas too early can be hazardous to your day of rest!

It was then the realization light bulb turned on; I was like a hound, tracking a bear, but changed directions when a deer scent crossed the path.  And then changed again when a cat's trail crossed the deer's...and changed one more time when he got a whiff of the mouse the cat had been hunting.  I was like a hound tracking a bear and wound up chasing a mouse.   It dawned on me that, somewhere in the long blue and red chain of my family's DNA, the bloodline must include hound.  That seems to be the only explanation for the way I start out to put away Christmas stuff and wind-up with forty million leaves in bags.   

Either that or, deep inside my psyche, my soul just can't let go of Christmas.   

Hunting-hound-unable-to-resist-multi-tasking-change-of-directions-syndrome is not limited to the tracking habits of canines (or, for that matter, preachers cleaning out the garage).  On a higher plane it is also a malady that afflicts followers of Jesus as we pursue our mission of seeking first the kingdom[1].  We start off to confess sin, live holy lives, and bring glory to God, aspiring to what Paul wrote to the church family in Rome.  He encouraged them to let God renew our minds, transforming us into a mighty witness for God’s way.  But we get distracted by minutiae which sidetracks us like a confused hound.  It may be criticism thrown our way, or a church power struggle.  But, more likely, it is just our natural fear causing us to resist the bending of our will to God's ways.  However it happens, we get off course, and the sad end-result is a child of God, bound for the kingdom, turning aside from the narrow path, winding-up staring at the mouse hole of this world's trinkets.  

Paul's admonition in Romans 12:1-2 becomes an all-important course-correction, reminding us of Jesus' words to not just set a priority of seeking God’s kingdom, but to keep on track.  Jesus taught that to his disciples; He said keep on seeking, keep on asking, keep on knocking[2].

For You Today

Hunting greater things requires staying on the path to which God has led us.  And doing that requires resisting other tempting distractions. 

So, if you’re like me, with hound in the DNA, stay on-point, following the greater path; let the leaves rest in peace and hang on to Christmas.  You’ve got a more important mission than watching mouseholes.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

GO TO VIDEO

[1] Title Image: Courtesy  Pixabay.com

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on this text see The Great Divide - AND SO - Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3   

---

[1] See Matthew 6:33

[2] See Matthew 7:7

 

In Times Like These (or any time)

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.  Psalm 63:8(KJV)

A few weeks ago I sent an email to all our Rocky Road followers to encourage us as we continue under the duress of the Coronavirus pandemic.  Included in the message were four questions:

1. What hope sustains you in this crisis?

2. What are you doing to stay positive?

3. How is this crisis challenging your faith?

4. How has God spoken to you in all this?

One family sent a thoughtful response which pretty much nails my thoughts on what sustains us during life’s crises, and even when there is no threat:

We may not send a video but would love to share our answer to question #2.  We read from the Holy Bible daily, (we actually started our daily devotions as a couple approximately 18 months ago). We sing a hymn or two together and lift praises and requests through prayer to our heavenly Father.  These very basic actions deliver the answer to the other three questions: they deliver hope, develop our faith and allow God to speak to us.[1] 

This response is dear to my heart because it so reflects what my experience has been in writing these devotional thoughts; God’s Word says it this way:

I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words.  Psalm 119:147

The truth, plain, unvarnished, undiminished, undiluted is that we need a guide for this life as much as I would need a technology expert if I were to open the back of my computer and start messing around with all the little wires and such.  We come into this world with precious little understanding of God, other than that stamp of His being on our souls.  Daily seeking in hot pursuit after knowing God is the calling of every human spirit.  It is that seeking after God that made King David and his son, Solomon wise.

It is amazing, and surprising just how a small thing like choosing to come close to God in each morning changes everything.  In the quiet of a morning (minus the snoring of my little dog who “studies” with me each day), God’s Word speaks to my heart, and I cannot tell the numbers of times there have been little dawnings in my soul, awakenings that have charted my course for that day, whether it requires social distancing or not. 

But, it’s not in the method (early morning, late evening, standing, sitting, which version of the Bible), it’s all about the surrender of the heart.  A surrendered, willing heart is God’s fertile soil for what He wants to accomplish in and through a person.

And it is all personal, which extends to the circles of relationship all around you.  When God speaks to your heart in and through His Word, and that heart hears, and that courage is called-forth, kingdoms of darkness are broken with the entrance of light.  

Sometimes it’s as simple as carrying a meal to a homebound person or taking time with the next-door neighbor’s child who wants to talk.  Or stocking your car with bottles of water, or McDonald’s coupons to hand to that homeless guy you’ve passed too many times without meeting a need for the daily bread that was his prayer in the sign he’s holding up with a stained, leathery hand.  God’s Word is more than a light for your path, and a lamp for your feet; it is also a word of encouragement for the downtrodden through your actions.

For You Today

So, what did His Word speak to your heart today?  And will the rest of you hear it?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO 

Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Psalm 68 see A Little More Light - Part 2 and Rescued

---

[1] This email response is reprinted with permission.

Dust, Ashes and a Little Electricity

[1]

Friday, February 19, 2016

VIDEO

He has thrown me into the mud. I’m nothing more than dust and ashes.  Job 30:19 ^(NLT)

Most events at church will warm our hearts; at other times what happens can light-up the soul.  A preacher (friend of a friend) on a Facebook post last week, the day after Ash Wednesday service, shared one of those “electric” moments.  

Here’s her post:

[2]

Now, you know that was good-natured teasing about the Taser! 

Another round of dust, ashes and electricity, please – well, isn’t that what we do?   Every year? 

Job felt God had abandoned him – even worse, thrown him back to the mud from which he’d been created.  The dust had all but returned to the dust, and Job experienced first-hand what we shoot for when we cover our foreheads with ashes on that Wednesday in bleak mid-winter; that we, too, are vulnerable – just bits of electricity flowing between the dust of creation and the ashes of mortality.  Pastor Nancy’s church member just got a little “extra jolt” of remembrance. 

That we sometimes miss the mark with what we do is evidenced by the man’s wife asking for a little higher voltage on the next round!  (Insert smiley face here!)

Church can be pretty tame when we stick to the printed program and stay in our seats.  Usually the “electric” moments come when we’re moving around and get close to one another.  I can easily think of at least a dozen or so memorable moments centered on baptism or communion, when children get near a chalice full of grape juice…or even comments at the back door when the service is over. 

I baptized a rather large man by immersion one time, and he got a little frantic going under the water.  He nearly pulled me under with him, along with my wired microphone.  I could have been Tasered and drowned in the same church event!

Things happen when you get close!

And that may be the rub about Lent; the sparks can fly when we begin to get as close to God as we say is our intention.

For You Today

So, were there “sparks” last Wednesday as you stood close enough for the preacher to dab ashes on your face? 

If not, there’s still time left in Lent to invite God to charge the Taser for your next round.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!

---

[1] Title Images:  By jasonesbain (Taser), via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Nancy Wofford on Facebook (used with permission)

Breaking the Engagement

 ^[1]

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Look here, you rich people:  Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you.  Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags.  Your gold and silver are corroded.  The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire.  This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment.  James 5:1-3^(NLT)

The Kingdom of God is populated with people who voluntarily place themselves near the King.  It means we love what the King loves, do what the King wants; we love the King.  It’s the picture of an engagement; Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride-to-be, complete with a ring of promise (being sealed by the Spirit of God[2]).

In addition to the promise, God has given us many engagement gifts.  He spoke the universe into existence - along with the cattle on a thousand hills, and told us to enjoy it.  Our correct response, as His created beings, is to worship the Creator, and enjoy what He has given us. 

But sometimes the bride becomes more concerned with what the Bridegroom has given than the relationship.  

A young woman confided to a friend, I've broken-up with Jerry; the engagement is off.  My feelings have changed toward him. 

The friend asked, did you give the ring back? 

Oh no, she replied, my feelings about the ring haven't changed at all!

When we break the engagement with God we place ourselves outside of the Kingdom; we wander away from our beloved. 

James sounds like the Old Testament prophets, calling-down judgment and woes on rich people.  And it’s hard to argue with what’s written; riches can cause one to break many engagements.

So much for the Prosperity Gospel!

But note that riches alone are not what breaks the engagement of the bride-to-be and her lover – it is the love of riches that is the root of much evil. ^{(1 Timothy 6:10)}  Possessions are only inanimate objects, not intrinsically good or bad.  They are totally without moral significance until we, by the way we think about and use money, create either good or evil intentions or acts.

So, there’s nothing wrong with being rich, but what a tremendous responsibility comes with abundance.  What we do with possessions and power of any kind determines whether we keep or break the engagement with God.

For You Today

A couple of good questions can help us any time:

#1.  Have you counted your blessings lately?

#2.  Have you intentionally used those blessings to create good or evil?

#3.  What will you do with today’s blessings?

---

[1] Title image:  By Jim Harper (Pixel23), via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Ephesians 1:13