Hope for Life Blog

Elijah had gone to the mountain looking for God.

He’d been ready to give up. Ready to lie down and die. He saw no hope, no future, no point in going on.

Then an angel told him to go to the mountain. And Elijah was there, waiting for God. But he didn’t know what to expect.

A powerful wind came, ripping apart the very rocks that made up the mountain. Surely this was God! But no, God wasn’t in that wind.

Next there came an earthquake. As Elijah felt the very mountain tremble, he must have been certain that this was God revealing himself. But no, God wasn’t in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire. Again Elijah looked for God. But God wasn’t in the fire.

Then came what the King James Version translates as “a still, small voice.” A whisper. A barely audible murmur with a question on its breath: “What are you doing here?” (1 Kings 19:12–13)

Elijah poured out his tale of woe, telling of his faithfulness to God compared with the unfaithfulness of the people around him. He told of the queen’s persecution of God’s prophets and her specific efforts to kill him. He explained to God that no else was faithful, not even one. Only Elijah was left.

That’s when God explained to Elijah that he couldn’t see the whole picture. That God was doing things that Elijah didn’t know about. That God had plans in motion, some of which included Elijah. And there were still six thousand people faithful to God that Elijah wasn’t aware of.

Have you ever reached that point where dying seemed to make more sense than living? The extreme of frustration and hopelessness that leaves you doubting whether God Himself can fix your problems?

Maybe you need to go to the mountain. Go looking for God. Don’t expect hurricanes or earthquakes. Don’t expect to be swept in a holy fire. Listen for the still, small voice. Listen for the question: “What are you doing here?”

And once you’ve poured out your heartaches and your fears, you may just find that God is doing things you don’t know about, both in your life and the lives of others.

But you’ll never see it, if you don’t look for Him.

It’s awkward isn’t it? “Happy Thanksgiving” no longer applies. “Survive Black Friday” doesn’t seem appropriate because you did. And since it’s the last day of November it’s a bit early to say “Merry Christmas”. So we’re stuck with “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays”.

Historically the busiest day for buying Christmas presents is the Saturday before Christmas and the second is Christmas Eve. This year both of those fall on Saturday, December 24.

So my suggestion is that we greet each other with “Survive Christmas Frenzy time”.

It seems easy to lose Jesus amid the hurry and scurry of finding that perfect present and the varied activities of celebrating the season. It’s easy to reduce Him to a catch phrase, “the reason for the season!!”

Yet, He IS the reason for the season. His birth was heralded as welcome to the Savior of the world. And through Him we have the promise of life forever with God Almighty.

For there’s born to you this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Luke 2:11-14

So maybe we should say to each other, “Thank God for Jesus.”

So what do you think?

In the United States, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving this week. For most, it’s a pleasant time shared with family and friends. There are sporting events and parades. Lots of stores use this time to kick off the holiday shopping season. And there’s usually plenty to eat!

And once in a while, we even remember to be thankful.

There’s lots of reasons to give thanks. It doesn’t always seem that way, but if we put our mind to it, we can usually think of more reasons for being thankful than for complaining.

In the Bible, there’s a beautiful piece of Hebrew poetry that expresses one man’s thankfulness to God. The author talks about blessings like health, rescue from enemies and material goods. He also talks about spiritual blessings, like God’s justice in this world.

In my favorite section of this poem, the author talks about the greatest blessing of all:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:8-12)

I love that imagery. “As far as the east is from the west.” All of my mistakes, all of my failings, all of my sin… God has taken it all away. So far away that it can never be connected with me again. “As far as the east is from the west.”

I don’t know what you’re thankful for this year. I’m thankful that God is slow to anger and quick to forgive. I’m thankful that He treats me with mercy, not harsh justice. I’m thankful that He forgives all of my sins, giving me a fresh start every day.

Be thankful for that as well. God’s forgiveness is available to you, just as it is to me, just as it was to that Hebrew poet so many years ago. Receive His forgiveness and be thankful. I’d love to tell you how.

How many people actually listen to the safety demonstration on an airplane? Nobody thinks that their plane is actually going to be involved in a crash. Besides, if you fly very often, you’ve heard the same spiel dozens of times. It almost seems like a waste of time.

Everybody knows how to fasten and unfasten their seatbelt, right? That seems like a pointless part of the demonstration. Maybe not; a study by the British Civil Aviation Authority revealed that an average of 6% of passengers get delayed by seatbelt problems during an evacuation.

Every safety demonstration discusses what to do if the plane has to make a water landing, but in the 2009 U.S. Airways landing on the Hudson River, only about half took a seat cushion for floatation and only 10 of 150 passengers thought to grab a life jacket. They’d heard the briefing, but hadn’t really listened.

Experts say that even a half-second delay in an emergency can mean the difference between life and death, yet few of us pay attention to the very information that can save our lives. We don’t value the information until we really need it.

I can’t help but feel that we treat God the same way. We’re vaguely aware that He’s there, we know that we really ought to learn more about Him, but we don’t take the trouble to do so.

Until we find ourselves in an emergency.

Then we wish we knew Him better. We wish we knew more about how to pray. We wish we were more confident about knowing what He expects of us and how we should behave towards Him.

My suggestion is not to wait until that crisis hits. Take the time to learn about God. Connect with people who know Him and can guide you. Learn the basics about Bible study, then make reading the Bible a part of your daily routine. Start talking to God on a regular basis… there’s no better way to learn about prayer than by doing it.

Connecting with God is easier than inflating a life vest or opening an emergency exit on a plane. And the rescue He offers lasts forever.

The sex was good, the rival eliminated, the baby bump was beginning to show and the whispers and gossip were flying. Then with a point of an aged finger and words that must have caused his head and heart to quake, “you are that man” everyone knew.

From the smug smile that flashed, “I’ve got this under control”, to the horrible realization that he was an adulterer, murderer, deceiver, liar, and betrayer, his world was reduced to the cesspool of reality that he was drowning in.

At that moment only the answers to two questions mattered. What does God say you should do? Are you going to do it?

What appears to be a script for a movie or TV show is a story from ancient times, sadly acted out over and over in the centuries since.

David, second king of Israel, had it all and lost it when lust controlled him. It is then that he answers those two most fundamental of questions. His answer can be read in the 51st Psalm.

Have mercy upon me, Oh God, according to Your loving kindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

David betrayed God, asked for forgiveness and is granted it, yet David still suffered the consequences of that sin (two of his sons die). In spite of all this both the prophet Samuel and Luke describe David as a man after God’s own heart.

If there was forgiveness for David, then there is nothing you can do that God can’t forgive!

Those two questions remain for you to answer. What does God say you should do? and Are you going to do it?

Which of those two is the hardest to answer?

It’s said that the opening of a book is extremely important. The writer needs to engage his readers from the outset, filling them with a desire to read more.

When the apostle Matthew sat down to write the story of Jesus, I’m not sure that he was thinking about that. The first 14 verses of his book are a genealogy. This man was the father of that man, who was the father of some other guy. It’s not the most exciting reading for most of us.

As we read through this list of fathers and sons, there are four names that ought to catch our attention. Four women made this list: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bath-Sheba. Over forty men are listed and only four women.

So these women must be especially righteous, especially virtuous women, right? They are included in the genealogy of Jesus, showing the people God used to bring His Son into the world. We would expect these women to be the examples of what women should be.

But that’s not the case. One of them dressed up as a prostitute and seduced her own father-in-law. One of them WAS a prostitute. Another committed adultery, got pregnant, and married the father of that child after her own husband was murdered. The other was fairly righteous, but she was also a foreigner. The Jews weren’t supposed to marry foreigners, so she shouldn’t even be on this list.

But these names are here. These women are remembered, while other women have been long forgotten. Matthew had his reasons, and I won’t pretend to know exactly what they were.

But I know that there is a lesson here: God can use anybody. Even when they’ve made mistakes. Even when they’ve been taken advantage of. Even when they don’t come from the right family. God can use anybody.

That message is fitting for the story of Jesus. Jesus came and made it possible for everyone to be acceptable to God. He broke down barriers, creating a new nation made up of people from every nation of this world. The story of Jesus is a story of inclusion.

I can be a part. You can be a part. Everyone who is willing to truly put their faith in Jesus can be a part.

People love stories. They love to hear them. They love to tell them.

It seems to be natural. Have you ever met a child that didn’t like stories? That didn’t want to be read to at night?

It’s not surprising that so much of the Bible is made up of stories. Well, maybe it is surprising. When we think of what we’ll find in a religious book, we often expect some sort of rule book or owner’s manual, telling people exactly how to live. And some of the Bible could be described that way.

But it’s mostly stories. Stories of grand adventures. Stories of everyday life. Stories of miracles and stories of tragedies. Stories that make you want to stand up and cheer, as well as stories that make you want to boo the villain.

Reading these stories can be a bit like reading any other history book. Until we get to that special part where God invites us to be a part of the story. To add our story to the stories that we find written in the Bible. To jump into the flow of God’s story and ride it all the way to the end.

I love looking at the videos on this website. People tell their story in those videos, their story about how God made them part of His story. Like the stories in the Bible, these stories involve tragedy and victory, great happiness and deep pain. And the stories have happy endings, because God can take every story and make it end well.

You’ve got a story. It’s a unique story that’s being written every day. But your story needs an ending, a happy ending. And I know that the only way your story can end happily is if you make your story part of God’s story.

He asked it! It was a startling question for a preacher to make to our sophisticated and technologically advanced congregation.  I admired his courage and wondered if he would be marginalized for being “out of touch” with the 21^st century.  He asked something like this:

“We are connected to our iPhones, iPads, iTouch, iTunes, iMac, iChat, but

   have we lost the connection to the I AM?”

God says:

“I am your shield, your exceeding great reward.”

Gen. 15:1

“I am Almighty God, walk before me and be blameless.”

Gen. 17:1

“I am the God of your father Abraham…for I am with you.”

Gen. 26:24

“I am the Lord, that is My name.”

Is. 42:8

“For I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like Me.”

Is. 46:9

“I am who I AM, thus you say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.”

Ex. 3:14

“I am with you.”

Jer. 1:14

“I am merciful.”

Jer. 3:12

Jesus says:

“I am the living bread which came down from Heaven.”

John 6:51

“I am from Him and He sent me.”

John 7:29

“I am the light of the world.”

John 8:12

“I am the door.”

John 10:9

“I am the good shepherd.”

John 10:11

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

John 11:25

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

John 14:6

“I am the vine, you are the branches.”

John 15:5

“I am Jesus….”

Acts 9:5

So the question awaits your answer.  Are you more connected to your idevice or the I AM?

If so what can you and I do about that? Or should we?

She approached cautiously and her eyes never left it. When her hands touched it, it was a caress, not a grab. Then she bowed, not to me but to the book. I was just the holder; she knew the importance of the gift itself. And I watched as she gently took the Bible in her native language of Swahili and cuddled it against her chest. Then as she sat, she began to read because she wanted to know what was written there. A young woman in Mbeya, Tanzania, not having a Bible before, hungered to know for herself what God says.

We have access to numerous Bibles, different versions, different styles. At times it seems that we more often read books about the Book, consult blogs offering opinions as to what the Bible is implying, listen to people with initials after their names as if only they understand the depth contained within the covers.

The contrast is striking, a young woman who had only heard what scripture says wants to read and understand it for herself. We who have those same words readily available seemingly would rather rely on someone other than God to tell us His thoughts. Do we really want the message of God homogenized and filtered by someone else?

The Apostle Paul reminded Timothy that:

…From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

II Tim. 3:15-17

To know what God says we must, like the young woman in Tanzania, read the Bible. We must become people of the Book, again.

So let me pose the questions and most don’t want to answer:

Do you really believe that the Bible is God’s word and thus the guide for our lives?

What is the basis of your thinking? How do you know?

How do you reconcile how you behave with what you believe?

I was helping clean up my sister-in-law’s yard after a recent wind storm when it happened.  The neighbor’s dog got me.  I knew he was not happy with the chain saw, the activity, and the work going on.  After all, he kept barking at us.  I was carrying a load of wood to the back gate, walking about one foot inside the fence.  All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of this dog trying to jump over the fence.  As I jumped sideways, he managed to extend his head over the fence and catch my arm.

There was not any lasting damage.  My arm was swollen and stayed bruised for a couple of weeks.  The dog was as surprised as I was.  My father-in-law worried about whether the dog should have gotten shots.  Ha, ha.  The neighbors were apologetic.  The yard got cleaned up, and we all stayed several feet away from the fence.

And I thought about how much like life this was.

We all know there are dangerous things in this world.  There is war, crime, and evil.  People steal, lie, gossip, and murder in our world.  We just do not expect it to happen to us.  Until it does.  Tornados, fires, hurricanes, and tsunamis occur around the globe.  We assume those things happen to other people, not us.  Until it does.  We even know intellectually that people get sick, sometimes even sick enough that they die.  We just do not think it will happen to us.  Until it does.

Hard things, bad things, tough things happen.  They happen unexpectedly.  Sometime it is our fault.  Sometimes it is someone else’s fault.  Sometimes it is no one’s fault.  Life happens.  Life goes on.  So how do we cope?  How do we survive?  How do we find hope, peace, joy, and purpose in a world like this?

I have found the answer in God, and so have millions of others throughout the ages.  He will get me through anything this life throws at me.  He has, and He will.  He gives my life hope, peace, joy, and purpose.  And He gives me life forever.  He has done this through His Son Jesus. 

Blessings,

steve