Tag Archives: Peace

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Pride and Humility Part 2

Humility Extolled

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"Only the poor in spirit can be humble. How often the experience, growth, and progress of a Christian become such precious matters to him that he loses his lowliness." Watchman Nee

O Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their heart, You will incline Your ear to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth will no longer cause terror.  Psalm 10:17-18

As I stated in the last post (Pride and Humility Part 1 –  Pride Renounced), we live in a culture that promotes autonomy, independence and self-assuredness.  When controlled, these characteristics are useful tools in life.  However, left unchecked, they will likely lead to pride.  Prideful arrogance impedes a relationship with God, inhibits relationships with others, multiplies guilt, brings dishonor and insures judgement.   Alternatively, humility is often despised by our culture because it appears to be the weaker trait.  However, it is desired by God because it yields rewards in both this life and the one to come.  Following are a few of the benefits.

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Deliberate Pursuit

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Pursue a life well lived with God's passion.

But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.  Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  1 Timothy 6:11-12

I’ve watched several people die…it’s not a particularly pleasant experience.  The closer you are to them, the harder it is.  The longer it takes, the more time you have to think.  That time and that pondering offer an opportunity for personal reflection in a way that no other experience does.  As someone you love is on the brink of entering eternity, what is important in life seems to be much clearer than when we are in the daily race meeting deadlines and running errands, etc.   Knowing that a loved one will shortly meet their Lord and God allows the Holy Spirit to speak to us and apply God’s word to our lives in ways that drive home His message with more depth and understanding.  In short, it is a wake-up call to pursue a life well lived…that is, to live intentionally rather than passively.

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Trouble, Anguish and Understanding Pt. 3

Anguish Within Mixed With Delight

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Master's Courage and Calm

“Trouble and anguish have come upon me, yet Your commandments are my delight.  Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.”  Psalm 119:143-144

Anguish is the inward response to trouble.  For those with a balanced perspective, anguish is reserved for extreme circumstances.  The Hebrew word used is derived from the word for a narrow place.  Therefore, in this context, the connotation is a place of confinement or disability.  That’s exactly what anguish does to us mentally; it makes us feel hemmed in and incapacitated.  It is both suffocating and immobilizing.  Even so, the writer of Psalm 119 expresses delight in God’s commands when faced with trials.  While at first blush it may seem odd to experience both anguish and delight in the same circumstance, as Christians, there are several reasons to be delighted in dire situations.

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Trouble, Anguish and Understanding Pt. 1

Give Me Understanding

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Understanding

“Trouble and anguish have come upon me, yet Your commandments are my delight.  Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.”  Psalm 119:143-144

Healthy relationships are built on knowledge, understanding and grace.  Sharing a conversation with a person will, in most cases, allow one to get to know them.   However, that does not necessarily mean that they have any kind of significant relationship…at this point they are, for the most part, acquaintances.    Solid relationships are built when people share their lives.  They celebrate the high points together, comfort at low points and offer aid, wisdom and guidance in the midst of struggles.  Grace covers the gap between knowledge and understanding as well as when there is a need for forgiveness.  Developing a strong relationship takes time and effort but yields a great reward.

Last week I was looking for scripture verses to post on social media and came across Psalm 119:43-44.  Despite having read and sung it many times, this time it struck a nerve.  The natural tendency of any human when faced with trouble that causes anguish is to seek understanding.  The important question is: what kind of understanding?

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Cup Half Empty or Half Full?

What do you believe?

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“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows.”     Psalm 23:4-5

The past couple of weeks I spent some time with my mother-in-law helping take care of some things around her home.  On the long drive there and back I listened to two sermons from Ligonier Ministries…in fact, I listened to them twice.  The second, “All Scripture is Profitable” (https://www.ligonier.org/blog/believing-god-new-teaching-series-rc-sproul-jr/) was by R. C. Sproul, Jr. which brought up the concept of whether our cup is half full or half empty.  As this is a subject close to my heart, I spent a fair amount of time on the trip considering this topic.  Like the phrase “cup half empty or half full”, the word cup in scripture has a figurative meaning that refers to one’s lot in life whether sorrowful (half empty) or joyous (half full).  Like many, if I ponder my life without God, I would have to conclude that it is half empty for I have accumulated 60 plus years of losses, trials and ordeals.  However, when I consider my life’s experiences in light of God’s involvement, I see a different outcome.  What was half empty becomes half full by God’s grace.  Let me walk through a few “for instances”.

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Love and Grief

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7)

This was not the topic that I originally intended for this week’s post, but given a few divinely inspired events, my plan was changed.  As is my habit, I started the day with the “verse of the day” emails from Bible Gateway and KLove. The one from Bible Gateway was a portion of Psalm 139.  It is a favorite of mine for many reasons; one of those is that it was the last passage my parents read together on the eve of my mother’s death.  That circumstance coupled with the quote that I posted this week beckoned me to consider love and grief.

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Looking Upward

Is God Enough For You?

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And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:19

I was recently included in an invitation to participate in an activity.  For various reasons I declined; any one of them had sufficient merit to opt out, but together, the choice was self-directing.  A few days after the initial invitation, a second was received.  It came on a rather busy day and not wanting to forget to respond, I sent a brief message indicating my choice.  Rather quickly, I received a reply questioning my decision which was followed by a volley of emails that indicated offense for both my choice and my means of communicating it.  The end result was yet another hurt and a broken relationship that increased my desire to withdraw from most people and especially pull away from the Christian community.

One of the difficulties for those dealing with life’s trials and/or the ongoing challenges of chronic illness is the focus.  We all face various circumstances that disappoint and frustrate us giving rise to the need of confidantes to whom we share our thoughts and occasionally vent.  However, when our thoughts become self-absorbed, we lose our perspective and cause damage in our vital relationships.

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Your Consolations Delight My Soul

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“If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have dwelt in the abode of silence.  If I should say, ‘My foot has slipped,’ Your lovingkindness, O Lord, will hold me up.  When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul.”  Psalm 94:17-19

I was preparing to go to yet another funeral this morning and was looking for peace within my own heart.  In this case, it was not a close friend, but rather the husband of someone I admire and have great affection for.  His widow is a dear soul and a godly woman who has been so kind to me that I ache for her.  We also have various connections with some of her children through church and business dealings.  In fact, her son is one of the morticians that helped with both of my parents’ funerals.  In short they are a family that I have great respect for as they regularly exhibit both kindness and integrity.  With that on my mind as I spent time with God this morning, He brought Psalm 94 to me…or more specifically, verse 19 and reminded me that this is one of those times to trust Him to be all that we need.  While the context of the psalm speaks to “evil doers”, the basic message still applies to all of our circumstances.  Consider each verse carefully.

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Peace of Christmas

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“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9:6

The passage above is a familiar one…especially at this time of year.  I have heard and seen it more than a few times in the past month; have you as well?   As much as you’ve heard it, have you allowed it to pierce your soul and impact your sense of wellbeing?  In other words, is Christ really your Prince of Peace and are you at peace within your soul?  I can honestly say that I have been for the past few days.  Maybe it’s a bit of maturity, maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been dwelling on this topic or maybe it is simply Christ at work…I suspect that it is mostly the latter.  In the past 72 hours I have had a minor fender bender (I tapped our older daughter’s car pulling out of the garage), learned that family circumstances may be changing that will impact our family’s ease in gathering together, endured more severe symptoms of my health issues due to the holiday celebrations and have had a delay in preparing this post, yet my heart is at peace.  Though historically unusual for me, it is not entirely unexpected as I’ve been trying to be intentional in applying the things I learn while writing to my own life.   While it’s easy to glide over these names of Christ, are they not a summary of the source of our peace?

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The Joy of Christmas

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“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”   Romans 15:13

Christmastime in our culture can be a tough time of year.  As Christians, we struggle with those who miss the whole point of the celebration because they do not believe in Christ.  Beyond that, there can be many hurdles to our joy shining through in this season.  The holiday schedule can get hectic which often leads to stress.  For those of us with illness, we often have enough trouble managing our heath without the additional burden of the social obligations that can exacerbate our symptoms in various ways.  For some, it will be the first Christmas without a loved one…or a few.  Others may have learned that this may be the last Christmas that they celebrate with a loved one as disease advances.  The opportunities for Satan to jump in and help us lose our joy are varied and endless, but if we are truly going to celebrate and maintain our joy, we need to intentionally focus on why we are celebrating…the incarnation of Christ.  This declaration of love bestowed upon us that brings us both joy and hope now and for eternity is the single source of our reason to celebrate.  We celebrate because He came, He rules and He is righteous.

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