Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith… Hebrews 12:1b-2a
Our Lord, I look to You not only as my King but as the Provider for my family. I live in a nation of wealth and plenty, and often it is too easy to forget that it was You who brought me to this place and this moment in history. It is also within Your power to remove it all.
Either way, whether enjoying plenty or little, I choose to recognize that all abundance comes from Your hand. Let my family and I never forget it, Lord, nor take for granted Your gracious provision. Thank You for all we have; not only abundant food, shelter, and clothing, but the ability to meet together with other believers, to study Your word, and to worship You free from fear.
As I recognize Your provision in my life, please open my eyes to those things which You have provided but are less easily recognized as blessings. Pain, suffering, trials, hardship, loss – all of these, too, can be blessings when surrendered to You or when used to bring us closer to You. Nothing is wasted in Your plan, Lord, and I am deeply grateful for that. Thank You that even the unpleasant moments in our lives are both useful and usable in Your Kingdom purpose.
Today – each day – I surrender all to You. I choose to thank You not only for what is commonly viewed as “good” but also for those things commonly thought of as “bad.” As Paul wrote, I rejoice in my suffering because I know it will produce endurance, and endurance will produce character, and character will produce a hope which will never put me to shame.
Each new day, I choose to put my hope in You no matter what my earthly circumstances may be. Even if my whole life is marked by pain, even if you should remove prosperity and I should fall again into financial poverty, I rejoice because my ultimate hope is not in this life but in Christ and His Kingdom, amen.
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
(Romans 12:9)
Our mighty God, You are a God of covenant loyalty and of never-ending love. Your faithfulness endures through the ages, your mercies never cease, and your steadfast love is more abundant than we can even imagine. You are not only the God of love, You are the God who is Love.
We praise You today for Your love, offered freely to us despite our rebellion.We give thanks because Your love always brings about what is best for us, preparing us for eternity with You even when it is uncomfortable for us here and now.
Lord, may we become intoxicated with Your love. May it motivate us to greater surrender to Your perfect will and to loving others as You have loved us – not because they deserve it, but because they don’t deserve it. But they need it.
We ask for the love of Christ to compel us to honor His sacrifice by complete obedience to You, to zeal for Your Kingdom, to have mercy on others, and to love without holding back as You held back nothing from us – not even Your Son.
Help our love to be genuine; an outpouring of the work of Your Spirit in our lives. Teach us to truly abhor what is evil, agreeing with You on the definition of evil and rejecting it without delay – even if the evil happens to be an old habit, a grudge, or even a seemingly innocuous pleasure.
Help us to cling to what is good in Your eyes. Incline our hearts to love Your word, to feast on it, and to obey it so that by testing we may know Your will and understand what is truly good and acceptable and perfect – not in the world’s ever-chaining definition, but in Yours. May we become what You desire us to be in Christ, amen.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
(Romans 5:3-5)
There is nothing quite like being a parent to highlight certain Scriptures with excruciating clarity.
Since Ash Wednesday, I’ve been reading and re-reading in the book of Romans, going through a couple of chapters over my breakfast and diving into a smaller portion for closer study when the meal has been consumed.
My weekend reading focused on chapters 9 and 10, which a read through a handful of times. I broke today’s fast with eggs scrambled with kale, onion, and red bell pepper along with a side of Romans 11, the previous two chapters still fresh on my mind. Then over coffee, I turned to Romans 5 for examination.
And I saw a horrifying glimpse of the grief our Creator feels over the rebellion of His creation. His children.
I saw it because I recognized a tiny sliver of His grief in Paul’s impassioned words from Romans 9:2-3:
…I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
And I recognized it because now that my own little brood have begun trying their wings, I share a human-sized portion of the same unceasing anguish, not only for my brothers, but for my children.
If I could trade my salvation for the assurance of each of theirs, I would do it without a second thought. Now with our oldest counting down the months until legal adulthood, I am more certain of this than ever before.
There is definitely anguish in my heart as I watch him stumble into a trap lined with acceptance but secular to its purposeless core. Only weeks after I’d bragged on what a delight he has become, he has seemed to turn a darker corner and morphed into the stereotypical rude, withdrawn teenager.
And the people who have his heart are not my brothers and sisters in Christ as before. I do not even know where they come from, but he is more connected with them than with any portion of the Body of Christ at present. This is a source of terrible grief for me.
And yet, I know there will truly be no greater joy for me than if I live to see him and his sisters walk in the Truth.
For now, however, I pray. I watch. I search the Word for wisdom and guidance. And I pray even more.
Through it all, I also rejoice in this season of parental suffering because, while it is intensely frightening and painful to watch my firstborn dancing around a fire which threatens to consume him, I know this form of suffering, too, brings endurance.
Endurance in prayer, greater hope in the faithfulness of my Lord.
But it also because this heartache helps me to understand with greater poignancy the never-failing, never-ceasing capacity for forgiveness and love held by my Father’s many times shattered heart. And also because through this anguish, I begin to better understand His keen joy when even one lost child is found and begins to walk in truth.
Lord, forgive me the hurts I have inflicted on You by my rebellion and untrusting ways. I never knew what pain was until now. Please guide my children to You. May they become Your children more truly than ever they were mine, and we rejoice together to someday see them walk in Your Truth.
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah.
(Psalms 62:5-8)
Gracious Redeemer, You are the only One who can restore the wreckage of humanity caused by sin. You, Lord, restore our brokenness when we humbly seek and submit to Your ways. Thank You for coming into our terrible mess and bringing hope and for setting us free from slavery to sin. Thank You for providing in Your Son an example to emulate and a goal to strive for and for Your Spirit who provides guidance for the willing heart.
Lord, break our hearts afresh today for our sin and restore in us a proper awe and reverence for You! Restore to us the joy of our salvation this day and continue to do so in the days to come – a great flood of joy in You which will spill out on everyone in our path..
This day, we also ask for Your help in bringing our hearts to obedience. We confess that we are stubborn and often rebel against Your grace. We put higher priorities on the things of this world – things that will soon pass away – than we do on You and on Your Kingdom.
Forgive us, Lord. Help us to overcome our unbelief. Increase our love for You so that obedience to You is of utmost importance in our everyday lives and is evidenced by the way we live each day. Guide our priorities and show us the way they should be ordered, and teach our hearts obedience to Your ordained order.
Please also help our families. Heal broken hearts and restore damaged relationships and shattered trust. Crush our hearts for our sin towards our husbands, wives, parents, children, siblings, or anyone else and prod us to confess with humility and seek forgiveness.
Where we have been hurt, remind us of how we have grieved You, the God who is Love, and help us to extend to others the forgiveness You have already shown to us. Redeem our relationships in all aspects, Lord, and mold us into a people for Your pleasure and purposes, amen.
Today will be a little bit different from my average post. The Blythe Daniels Agency has graciously provided me with 2 copies of Jeannie Blackmer’s new book, Talking to Jesus: A Fresh Perspective on Prayer, which I have agreed to review.
In addition, you will find the link to a raffle below the review (near the bottom of this page) which you are welcome to enter. One randomly selected winner will be drawn from the entries to receive the other copy of the book!
So without further ado, I bring you:
Talking to Jesus: A Fresh Perspective on Prayer
By Jeannie Blackmer
Jeannie says, “I’ve always looked at these dialogues with Jesus in scripture as interactions showing us the power he has and the miracles he did when he walked the earth. Suddenly, however, my perspective shifted. I began to see the conversations as prayers. After all, these people were just talking to Jesus. This realization changed my prayer life. These dialogues – authentic and desperate – became my prayers.”
Some days, I wonder what it would be like to wake up and find that nothing hurts.
And yet, in the hands of the Almighty, no suffering is wasted.
If the struggle with chronic migraine (and other assorted aches and pains) were not a part of my life, it is doubtful I would enjoy the rare privilege which is currently mine. Because of my experience with pain, I am able to share hope in God despite it with a certain blonde young lady who is one of my part-time daughters.
You see, I can relate to her pain because I share it myself, and in the sharing, I can point her to a God who can also relate to both physical and emotional suffering. Together, we can help one another pick out His voice above the cacaphony of pain, seeking the light rather than cowering in the dark.
In her book, Talking to Jesus, Jeannie relates a similar message in the stories of two pairs of blind men. Like my young friend and I, they work together, pushing through physical impediments to find Jesus rather than remaining lost in the dark.
As I read through Talking to Jesus, I truly did find a refreshing perspective on prayer. Although I have always thought of prayer as a conversation between myself and the Lord, I have not thought of Scripture’s recorded face-to-face encouters with Jesus as prayers.
Jeannie Blackmer does just this by artfully weaving imaginative storytelling into selected Biblical narratives without changing any of the Lord’s words. In each recorded experience with Jesus, she imagines what may have gone on in each person’s heart and mind leading up to the divine encounter.
I thoroughly enjoyed viewing these well-known tales through a new lens as well as Jeannie’s personal responses to each one. I also appreciated the honest and grace-filled approach to some of humanity’s thornier habits. For me, the additional Scriptures provided for reflection and the space for journaling my personal observations is a thought-provoking and enjoyable tool to enrich my own prayer life.
If you or someone you know could use a little inspiration in your prayer life, pick up a copy of Talking to Jesus – or enter below for the chance to win a free copy!
You can find out more about Jeannie, including where to buy her book, on her webpage, Talking to Jesus.
El Shaddai, my Almighty God who has created the heavens and earth and all that are within them, today I find myself reflecting on yesterday’s eclipse. I am utterly in awe of Your sovereignty and power. In Genesis 1:14-15, Your word tells us that You created the sun, moon, and all the stars and put them in their place, and that they would be “for signs and seasons, and for days and years.”
Even though I was unable to see the total eclipse yesterday, the sheer knowledge of all the factors that had to be in place for an eclipse to occur at all is awe-inspiring. You did this, Lord! You put this universe in motion and the heavens truly do declare Your glory and the sky above proclaim Your handiword, just as Psalm 19 states so well. Somehow, in the midst of a 99% eclipse, the wonder of Your power and plan gripped me. Yet even on a “normal” day, the heavens still proclaim You just as loudly. How I love to look up into the sky for that very reason!
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
Psalms 19:1-2
Today, I ask that You will tune my heart and the hearts of my family to hear this heavenly praise and join it. As we think of yesterday’s solara eclipse, remind us of that eclipse so many centuries ago that occured right as Your Son gave up his life as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Not only that, but we ask You to reveal us of the things we allow to eclipse Your glory in our lives – family, money, career, entertainment – so many things! Forgive us for ever allowing anything at all to come between You and ourselves. Lord, remind us always that our eyes are to be set on Your glory and that our contentment, joy, and peace is found in You alone. Remind us also that even in our darkest hour, Your Light is never extinguished but only hidden for a time. Oh God, let Your Light shine brightly and boldly in us! Make us into blazing beacons for Your glory in this world, in the Name that is above all names, amen.
Psalms 19:7-14
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
(Psalms 4:1)
Giver of all good gifts, today we praise You for Your mercy and for the unbelievably precious gift of our salvation in Christ. Thank You for loving us even when we were in rebellion towards You and for saving us despite ourselves. You are truly a God of mercy, compassionate and faithful to the uttermost!
As we come before the throne of grace today, we come as those who are in desperate need. We need Your grace, Lord. There are many among us who are hurting either physically or emotionally; many who walk in darkness and struggle with burdens too heavy for us to carry. Yet You are the Light of the world who dispels the darkness, and upon Your able shoulders we are told to cast our cares and our worries.
Today, I ask that You will help those who are in need to do just that: cast their cares on You. Pierce the darkness with the light of Your truth and goodness, and lift the burden of those who are heavily laden. Refresh the weak and weary in spirit and revive the heart of the despondent. I humbly ask that You will lift the eyes of the downcast and cause them to be fixed steadfastly on You.
Be the Healer, the Provider, and the Joy of Your people, Lord! Make our hearts feel the rightness of Your presence and cause our spirits to soar on wings like eagles’. May it be that Your people are so filled with the joy of the Lord that we naturally proclaim Your goodness and grace by our every action and word. Revive the hearts of Your people for Your own glory, Lord, and let it be that we display Your power as we walk in victory over sin and despair. For the glory of the risen King and in His name we ask this benefit, amen.
Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
(Colossians 4:2)
Some weeks are just… funky. Take this week, for instance. Coming off of a several-week stretch of absolutely ridiculous fatigue, I finally woke up on Monday and felt, if not exactly rested, at least functional.
And it was a pretty productive day. In fact, between Monday and Tuesday, I managed to get through the usual homeschooling, parenting, and home management details plus finish correcting formatting errors on my manuscript, do some preliminary research on what I need to do in terms of putting together a book proposal, and started revising my chapter summary in hopes of gaining some publisher or agent’s attention.
On top of that, I was able to finish a project I’ve been working on as a gift (which I can say nothing more about on the off chance that the intended recipient stops by). I even had some excellent walks and talks with my Heavenly Father – something I have badly missed this school year but am now able to do again thanks to my son’s new status as a driver.
Yet, I could think of nothing useful to write about.
I suppose that keeping any sort of record of my faith journey is bound to have spells like this. Sometimes, I simply feel like there is nothing new to say. At other times, the things God is showing me through my time in His word or prayer just takes time and meditation before it can be distilled into words.
Still other times, I have one of those extremely mild but extremely annoying little “migraine-ish” headaches that does little more than scatter my thoughts and crumble my motivation. At times like that, writing becomes something very like trying to leash train a cat.
The Miscreant enjoying his walk
At times like this, I suppose the thing to do is to persist. Write something down anyway. Drag the dead weight if I must.
Actually, it’s a lot like prayer…
In his letter to the Colossian church, Paul admonishes them to “continue steadfastly in prayer.”
This is a reminder I recently needed. After all, sometimes God answers prayer in immediate, very specific, and exciting ways. At such times it is a thrill to be a part of His work, and the natural overflow is one of thanksgiving and praise.
But other times…
Well, other times remind me of Abraham. When he first met God, his name was Abram, and he was told to take his household and move to “the land that I [God] will show you.” (See Genesis 12:1)
Not long afterwards, the Lord told Abram that He would give all the land his eyes could see to Abram and his children (Genesis 13:14-18). At this point, the man was childless, yet he did as the Lord said. Eventually, when Abram was 99, the Lord revealed Himself to Abram as El Shaddai – the Almighty God – and changed his name from Abram (exalted father) to Abraham (father of a multitude). You can read about that in Genesis 17, and there is a lot more to say about the story than time allows (especially since I am now trying to squeeze this post in when there are a half-dozen other tasks awaiting me).
For now, suffice to say that Abraham died before God’s promise was fulfilled, owning only the cave that he and his wife were buried in (see Genesis 23:19-20 and 25:9). And yet, we are told that, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:3 et al).
The promise may not have been completely fulfilled in Abraham’s lifespan, but he did die with a sort of foothold on the Promised Land. And eventually, of course, his offspring did possess the land.
I tend to think Abraham may have been a teensy bit more self-focused than me. You see, he believed God and persisted in his relationship to the Lord no matter what. I have to admit that I have been known to throw a bit of a temper tantrum to my Father, along the lines of, “You promised that if I asked certain things that I know to be within Your will, they would happen. Where are they?”
Yeah, it’s a little embarrassing on my part.
The truth is, God does fulfill His promises; but not in my time and my way. Maybe Abraham knew this, which is why he was so willing to march up Moriah with his son, a knife, and a bundle of firewood. He knew God would deliver on the promise, even if it was in some convoluted way that Abraham could not see. Maybe, to Abraham, a foothold was assurance enough.
So, whatever it is you are praying for, if you are certain it is within the will of God (and I am speaking more of the salvation of another person or that your children will love God with all their hearts, not a new car or a better house), continue steadfastly!
But – and here is the part that I am slow to learn – continue steadfastly with thanksgiving. If we really, really believe God will do what He says He will do, why wait to thank Him when the deal is done? I think, maybe, what I need to do more of when I persevere in prayer is to do so with gratitude already on my lips, fully confident that my God will bring it to pass.
After all, when I look at my own salvation, I see that He has already given me a foothold.
He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
(1 Thessalonians 5:24)
Our Lord who is our Portion, we truly have no good apart from You. You are the Giver of all good gifts, our Refuge and Strength, and Your grace alone is sufficient for us. Forever, You are faithful, holy, and just, and in You we find satisfaction.
Yet… we are a fickle people. We confess that we often try to find pleasure or fulfillment in things that seem to satisfy but are only temporary. Too often, we look to hobbies, entertainment, or even other people to placate us in our whims. Too often, we grow impatient or restless when You call upon us to wait on Your timing, and we endeavor to accomplish Your work through our own means or strength. In brief, too often, Lord, we fall short of believing that You are enough.
Still, You are enough. If we belong to You, then we can trust You no matter what our circumstances may appear to be. Just as You had a plan for Joseph in the actions of his traitorous brothers and even in his undeserved imprisonment, sometimes what seems impossible or horrible to us is merely a part of Your plan to bring glory to Your name.
God, forgive us for our unbelief! Forgive our mistrust of Your motives and ways, and teach us not to look for pleasure and contentment apart from You. Forgive, too, our self-focus as we concern ourselves with the gratification of our desires rather than with Your good pleasure.
Replace our self-focus with Christ-focus and restore us to a right relationship with You. May we become less in our estimation as You become greater. As the psalmist wrote, “you make known to us the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore,” (Psalm 16:11). Let these words become reality for us, Lord, and may we become a people passionate to exalt the reputation of our mighty God. All this we ask for the sake of Your Son and in His name, amen.
Running the Race 