Tag Archives: Struggle

Posted on

Striving to be Holy

by

Godliness

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.  1 Peter 2:9

Striving to be a holy child of God is often difficult. On rough days like today, I really have no desire to be responsible for anything. I don’t want to do anything; I don’t want to think; and I don’t want to interact with others.  I just want to withdraw, move as little as possible and emote.  However, that is not living well.  To be sure, we must address the needs of our bodies that arise due to illness and aging, but even in our frailty we are called to be obedient and proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called us.  One of the ways that we do that is rising to be faithful, obedient, grateful, kind, considerate and caring despite the challenges that we face.   It is certainly a battle to be holy, but understanding various facets of the struggle allows us to fight intelligently.

Continue Reading »
Posted on

Give Thanks to the Lord!

by

Farm Pic with Psalm 100:4

Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples.  Psalm 105:1

As it is Thanksgiving in the United States, please join me in refection upon Psalm 136 which is a beautiful model for being truly thankful.  As this Psalm states, no matter what God is doing, His love for us is everlasting.  It starts with who God is, moves through various things that He has done and finishes with how He is ever mindful of us.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Images of Hope

by

Without Christ there is no hope

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.  Hebrews 10:23

For several years after I became seriously ill, I didn’t plan any events in my life.  I had no confidence that I would be around for the long haul, therefore, planning was out of the question.  The problem was a lack of hope.  While I still had the hope of eternity, I had no hope that God would sustain my body or that I could endure.  Eventually, that lack of hope made my soul sick.  Thankfully, God sustained me and slowly began to educate me on the finer points of living well before Him.  One of those lessons was that there seem to be two kinds of hope: jubilant hope and steadfast hope.  While I had witnessed plenty of examples of jubilant hope e.g. the hope that comes with: salvation, marriage, or a healthy newborn child, and the like, I had no living images of steadfast hope to lean on.  The culture in which I was raised didn’t deal kindly with people who openly discussed their problems and therefore, was devoid of discussions regarding God’s use of trials to mold, shape and equip them.  In that light, let’s consider a few images of steadfast hope, specifically hope that is: teachable, observant, patient, resilient, faithful trusting that God is enough.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Controlling the Uncontrollable

Strength in Weakness

by

Edge of pier for light house on lake Michigan at sunset

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

My wife and I went to a dinner theater last week with my aunt, uncle and a few of their friends.  Shortly before the intermission, one of the ladies in our group collapsed into the lap of the woman sitting next to her.  Admittedly, given her symptoms, most of us thought that she was dying.  Thankfully, by the time the ambulance arrived, she had recovered enough to walk to the gurney.  After spending the night in the hospital, she was released with a heart monitor.  Aside from the obvious concerns for those involved, it raised a deeply rooted fear of my own.  As much as I accept God’s will in my life, the thought of a public medical emergency still haunts me…and I’ve had a few.  For many of us, it raises concerns about embarrassment, image, and acceptance.  Ultimately, we cannot control the events of our lives, but we can control our response to them with a bit of truth.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Trouble, Anguish and Understanding Pt. 3

Anguish Within Mixed With Delight

by

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.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Trouble, Anguish and Understanding Pt. 2

Trouble Without

by

WE CAN BE CERTAIN THAT GOD WILL GIVE US THE STRENGTH AND RESOURCES WE NEED TO LIVE THROUGH ANY SITUATION IN LIFE THAT HE ORDAINS. THE WILL OF GOD WILL NEVER TAKE US WHERE THE GRACE OF GOD CANNOT SUSTAIN US. BILLY GRAHAM

“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

Trouble…it seems like a simple enough word to understand.   However, when looking at definitions from secular sources, those provided were vague and had more to do with how trouble affects our comfort level or convenience rather than anything significant.  In contrast, “Vine’s Bible Dictionary” states it clearly as:  tribulation or affliction.  Trouble comes in many forms.  At times it is the result of a personal attack while at other times it is and “random”/general attack that we’re caught in.  It may be an external threat or an internal one such as mental or physical illness.  The point is that, as those living in a fallen world, we are going to experience trouble throughout our lives from the trivial to the monumental.  We will enjoy a more peaceful existence if we learn to view it as God does and trust that He is ever faithful to care for us.  One of the mental hurdles for us is that from our perspective, God’s care for us appears to be inconsistent.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Trouble, Anguish and Understanding Pt. 1

Give Me Understanding

by

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?

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Do You Prefer Discipline or Neglect?

Running with endurance

by

Affliction does not teach you about yourself from a textbook; it teaches you from experience. It will always show you what you love – either the God of all comfort, or the comfort that can become your god. Joni Eareckson Tada

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.”  Hebrews 12:5-6

Life can seem to be trying and wearisome at times.  This summer is the third summer in a row that my wife has had to use crutches due to injury.   My own health issues have been more challenging this year.  I have added two new specialists to my list of doctors and will likely add a third by the end of the year.  And yet, despite our struggles and their related frustration and fatigue, we consider ourselves quite fortunate having learned over time that:  our situation could be much worse; our trials are truly “light and momentary”; and God is faithful to sustain us.  It doesn’t make the endurance an easy thing, but it does encourage us and provide a healthier perspective than our culture offers.  With this understanding, we further recognize that the discipline and sustaining grace of God is infinitely better than being neglected.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Animal Instincts and Obedience School

Learning Submission

by

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Philippians 2:5-8

Two years ago we put down what we thought would be our last pet.  We had decided that we couldn’t take having to say goodbye to another beloved dog; further, the freedom the lack of pets would afford seemed beneficial.  That plan began to erode when our younger daughter’s family rescued a shih tzu last fall.  I liked the dog so much that our grandsons regularly reminded me that Leo was their dog and he had to go home with them.  As a result we adopted Tiffany in December.  She is mostly a sweet and somewhat timid dog, but as she is part terrier, she has an aggressive side as well.  In fact, her outbursts of aggression are the primary reason that she ended up back at the humane society after roughly seven months with another couple.  While she has historically been fine with all others, she has a tendency to snarl at her owners when she doesn’t want to be disturbed.  This is her greatest weakness and the ultimate manifestation of her animal instincts.  The difference in her owners is that the first family quickly gave up, but we have enrolled her in obedience school and are working with her to make her a good companion.  The goal is to teach her to submit to us in all ways for her safety and well-being as well as to provide more peaceful lifestyle for us all.   While none of us likes to be compared to an animal, the fact remains that as Christians we are all like Tiffany in varying degrees.  We have this sinful nature that urges us to follow our “animal instincts” rather than to humbly submit to God.  Left unchecked, it separates us from God.  Consequently, the process of sanctification is in reality obedience school in which we learn to give up control and submit to our Savior, our Master, our Lord and our God.

Continue Reading »

Posted on

Sing praise to the Lord

The value of praise

by

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.  Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody.  With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the Lord.  Psalm 98:4-6

Praise when things are going well, when we are blessed by a great time of Christian fellowship and learning, or amid a large body of believers is usually fairly easy, but what about the dark days…the days of pain and suffering? As I’ve mentioned many times, music is important to me.  I love to listen to it, I love to sing it, and I love to dance to it.  What I love most is singing to praise God.  As much as I love it, there have been two periods in my life that required a bit of effort to sing praise.  The first was a longer period (several years) from the time it was determined that I was chronically ill until God began to instruct me regarding the value of trials and pain with respect to my soul.  During that time, songs like “Blessed Be” and “Untitled Hymn” became very important as I struggled understand and to come to peace with God’s plan for me.  The second period was the years from 2012 to 2015 in which we dealt in varying degrees with the various health issues of our fathers and their deaths. While I had previously learned about God goodness even in trials, the struggle was still difficult and there were many times that I had to will the praise out of my mouth.  Rather than succumbing to the urge to be silent, I knew that praise to God is especially critical in difficult times.  What makes it so critical is the message that it sends.

Continue Reading »