PERSPECTIVES CHANGED

I love our house church family. More and more, I'm learning to hear Jesus as He speaks to me through the members of His Body as we gather together around Him.

Most recently, I heard something that really gave me a fresh perspective about pain and suffering.

One of our sisters was sharing about how she had been angry at God. She was upset because it seemed to her that her sister was suffering horribly in areas where she herself was enjoying the blessings of God. This disparity made her angry and she let God know that she needed Him to be as good to her sister as He had been to her. It just didn't seem fair that she should be so blessed and her sister should suffer so horribly without any end in sight.

Eventually, my friend said to God, "If you don't fix this and bless my sister, I'm not sure I can continue to trust in you."

That was quite the ultimatum. I'm sure some of you can relate.

From her perspective, there was an injustice that needed correcting. God loved both of them the same, and yet one of them was being blessed and the other was in pain. Why was that? How could God allow this to continue?

But then my friend gained a new perspective on the entire situation. She slowly started to hear from God the phrase, "I am" in various ways; as she read scripture, as she prayed, and as she spent time with Him, the realization of God as "I am" began to soften her heart and it gave her a fresh angle on everything.

To her, that realization meant that God was so much bigger than the momentary "goodness" or "badness" of a particular person's experience in a given space of time.

But, to me, as she was sharing this with all of us on a Sunday morning, what I heard the Lord say to me was this: "Get to know me better. All of these experiences you have - Blessing, Pain, Joy, Suffering - all of these are opportunities for you to know me in a deeper way."

Immediately, my mind went to the verse which says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." [Ps. 37:4]

Right away I realized that the verse wasn't saying, "Make God happy and He will give you the stuff you want", which is honestly how I think most of us read that verse at first.

Instead, I started to see how this verse was simply saying: "If you make God your delight, then you will receive more of God as a reward."

In other words, "Is it your delight to know God more? Is the desire of your heart simply to know Him in a deeper way?" If so, then you're in luck! Because God's promise is to fulfill that desire and to show you more and more of Himself as you seek Him daily.

Suffering, then, becomes another opportunity to know God's heart. Blessings are also an opportunity to know something about God. Our joys reveal more of God's character, and our sadness points us to Him as well.

Too often, we become fixated on avoiding pain and maximizing our pleasure. But that's a very carnal way of living, and it reduces our experience of God to a simplistic paradigm which says: "If I'm blessed then God loves me and if I'm suffering then God is upset at me."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus is with us always, no matter what our experience is. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and he dances with us in our seasons of joy.

Jesus told us plainly: "In this world you will have trouble", and then He added, "But take heart, because I have overcome the world."

The troubles still come our way, but our gift is that we get to go through those hardships with Jesus alongside us.

"It rains on the unjust and the righteous as well," Jesus said. The difference for us is that we get to know Jesus better along the journey of life, whether in joy or in sorrow.

I hope that encourages you today.

If it does, please share this with your friends on Facebook or Twitter. There might be others who need to hear this blessing too!

Peace,
Keith

You May Hate Yourself, But God Is Crazy In Love With You

You make His heart sing.
He can't stop thinking about you.
He throws back His head and He sings over you.

The voices of the angels ring in His ears night and day, but what He yearns for most desperately is to hear your voice calling out His name.

You think you're worthless, but He thinks you're worth dying for.

The value He has placed on you is greater than you can imagine.

He literally gave His life to be with you.

When He saw how much it would cost to make you His own He didn't blink an eye, He paid the ultimate price and now you are His.

Now nothing can ever separate you from His love.

He created Eternity so you could get to know Him better.



When God looks at you, He sees His beloved. He sees His child. He sees a face He cannot wait to kiss, and a hand He cannot wait to hold. 




His fondest desire is to be with you forever.

He has plans for you. Good plans. Fantastic dreams designed to fill your heart with joy and your eyes with wonder.

So, you might hate yourself, but God is crazy in love with you.

Let that love change your heart. Let His love transform you from within. 

Trust in Him. He wants nothing but the best for you.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit." - 1 Cor. 2:9-10

-kg

Joyous New Year!

My friend John Wahrmund recently emailed me to wish me a Joyful New Year. In his words, "Happy" just wasn't enough:

"As I have reflected on the phrase "Happy New Year," happy doesn't seem to be the right word. Happiness is fleeting...but joy, now there is something powerful.

My friend, I hope we all have a Joyful New Year and in the words of Paul..."Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."

I have to agree. Our constitution promises every citizen the right to the pursuit of happiness, but our happiness usually involves being selfish about our wants and desires at the expense of others.

Joy is a spiritual reality where a permanent fountain of God's rich internal satisfaction wells up from within. The joy of the Lord is our strength. It sustains us even in difficult times. Joy is not dependent upon our circumstance. It can thrive, and often does, in spite of our trials and tribulations.

In 2010 I wish every one of you the joy of the Lord. I pray that He would fill you with His goodness and allow you to experience the peace that passes understanding and the joy that gives us strength to endure and overcome.

-kg

Peace

"...the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." - Jesus (John 14:26-27)

If there's anything I need right now, it's the peace of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

I've felt so disjointed the last few weeks, as you may have noticed due to my less-than-frequent blogging here. Life is busy.

I know that everyone in Orange County is "Busy". If you don't believe me, just ask them. They'll tell you with a sigh that they are busy.

But for the last several years my wife and I have been, intentionally, living as simple and as stress free a life as we can manage.

A lot of our friends say we already do too much, but the truth is we normally only do the things we love doing and then we just do a whole lot of it. For instance, we love to serve the poor and to spend time with people so we do as much of that as we can with our kids and our house church. We also love our kids and so we spend as much time doing family stuff as we can. We also love our house church family and so any chance to be with them we take advantage of it and we do that.

Lately, however, we've been invaded by a series of time-stealing activities that have made me long for those days when we could spend more time doing what we love instead of what we have to do.

So, today at work, where I am buried under a never ending mountain of projects, I googled this verse and took a moment to meditate on what it means to lean on the Holy Spirit and to ask Jesus for his peace.

I need that peace right now. I need the joy of the Lord to be my strength.

Granted, these things that are stealing my time for the moment are passing. Soon enough my life will return to normal (in about six more weeks) and then I can stretch out and enjoy the luxury of a quiet moment with my family, or a fun time with my sons, or a warm cup of coffee with a good friend.

Until then, I am daily seeking Jesus for His peace and for the strength that God provides me through His joy.

Peace,
Keith