Category Archives: Faith

Never stop dating

“Never stop dating!”

That advice is given to those who want to know how to keep their relationship strong. It may often come from couples who realized just in time that their own love had once cooled and thankfully was rekindled.

We often struggle in various types of relationships to hold on to the sweet, close times. Life so strongly comes along and wedges its way between people who were once perfectly attuned to one another. How can we keep this from happening? What can be done?

Never stop dating. 

Be intentional about finding what brings a smile to that person’s face, and go out of your way to make it happen. 

The couple who graciously agreed to let me use this picture from a few years back was certainly a shining example of this advice. Through cancer, strokes, unspeakable family losses, and health declines that most would find hard to comprehend, the light of love still shone so brightly between them. As this picture captured, they were beautifully intentional in showing their love and fierce devotion for each other. When God referred to the marriage relationship as demonstrating His commitment to us, I’m sure this is what He pictured.

I shared about them six years ago, and at that time, I had been preparing breakfast one morning when something caught my attention: I recognized a “little thing” as being something my Jesus had provided for me. In that moment I thought about what had happened over the past 30 years.

The beginning of this beautiful walk with God was often marked by moments of becoming keenly aware of some small thing, and acknowledging how sweet it was that Jesus noticed that and addressed it; of how touching it was to feel His presence in the otherwise mundane occurrences of life; of how different that awareness and closeness were from what I thought was an equivalent walk with God in my denominational upbringing and the years before the Holy Ghost came.

I was still amazed for years at the depth of His presence I had been allowed to know, when in the past, I had only read about and imagined such a true closeness. I knew this change had come because of the Gospel preached by the Apostles (Acts 2:38) which I was allowed to see as still  being relevant today, and which would bring this power when literally obeyed. I knew that my doing so, by His grace and mercy, had brought all the difference.

When one person in a relationship who reaches out for a close, even intimate, moment is rebuffed or ignored, they often withdraw and become unreachable to the other party. We are formed in the image of God–not only our physical being, but our emotional make-up as well. God penned, through the hand of Solomon (Song of Solomon, chapter 5), the story of the maiden’s Beloved knocking at her door at a time she found it inconvenient to answer. By the time she decided to arise and open the door, her Beloved had withdrawn himself and gone. 

I remember many tears rolling down my face once to read that story, and to understand the implications for the treasured walk with God I had been given: if the Spirit of God moved on me for prayer, for closeness, and my heart was “busy” and uninterested at the time, He could very easily move away and be unavailable when I found a “convenient season.” (Felix, who trembled at the preaching of Paul in Acts 24, and chose not to yield to what God was doing until a “convenient season,” never was recorded to have had God deal with him again.)

When God, through the prophet Amos, described Israel’s disdain for the feasts and solemn days He had commanded them to observe — times He had ordained for them to draw closer to Him — He said in that context that he would send a famine unto them, not for meat and drink, but for the hearing of the Word of the Lord. Please know that we don’t come to God when we decide to: we come when He draws us (John 6:44), or not at all.

Over time what changed for me was the recognizing what sweet things were being done, and the remembering that it hadn’t always been that way in my life. Taking the ones we love for granted is something we struggle with in every type relationship. We can even begin to believe we are the reason for our own success in situations where we would look pretty silly propped up by ourselves to make our own way in the world.

Remember. Recognize. Acknowledge. Look for God’s hand in the little things, and take time to thank Him. Talk sweet praises and loving phrases to the God who came to make everything new, and who walks in things both good and bad — for you. If you’ve never seen the truth of Acts 2:38 as it applies to your life, then seek to know God that way — don’t shy away because it represents something different than what you have known. For me, that seeking represented the beginning of something more beautiful than even I could have pictured at the start.

“Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, for thou has left thy first love.” (Rev. 2:4) 

It need not be that way: Start dating again.

The sweet lady who shared the love I described in the beginning now cherishes that love in her precious memories. Her loss has been devastating. Yet, just today, as she was out of town to distract from the pain of this first Valentine’s Day without her cherished husband, the only One who could love her more gave her a sweet reminder of His closeness and deep care for her.

She shared how a stone with a message of encouragement was lying on the pier where she walked. The message said, “Be kind. Be good. Be strong. Be happy. Be you.” Ideas of how it came to be there are not necessary. It was placed in the path of one who needed to hear that message from Heaven today. Her choice to never stop loving the One who loves her most will pay off for ever and ever as He walks with her hand in hand through the days ahead.

A Deeper Life podcast – Intro

Are you hungry for more but unsure of what will fill the restless place in your spirit? Do you wonder if you are walking with God in all He intends for you? Whether you are far from God or doing what you know to do in living for Him, A Deeper Life offers solid biblical insight on finding the “more” you were born to live.

After Christmas

As I write, one week from Christmas Eve, preparations for the greatest celebration of the year are in full swing. They are affecting me differently this year as I sit by my mother’s hospital bed where we I have been for the past week. I am not sad over being sidelined from the festivities, it simply feels a bit other-worldly, knowing what is taking place out there somewhere. I find myself wondering how I will feel after Christmas.

My social work education involved the study of psychology and sociology, and I realize the effect of those studies on my thinking, particularly about social trends and their effects on us as individuals and groups. I have noticed, for example, there is something satisfying about anticipating and experiencing our end-of-the-year traditions. When they are over and a new year has begun I feel the need to somehow earn that celebration with the efforts of a new year of living, loving, working, and giving. To have doubts about how I will experience Christmas this year makes me wonder if I will somehow miss the sense of my year being complete for having passed through this blessed season.

We are thankful for the prospect of having Mom home a few hours on Christmas Day if she makes the expected transition to another level of care by then and feels up to it. Many people I am aware of have experienced losses, tragedies, and family changes this year to the degree that no sense of normalcy is possible in the observance of December 25. How will they feel after Christmas?

Perhaps we can look back to the beginning for answers. I understand what we celebrate, the birth of Jesus, did not likely occur at the time of year we observe it, but nevertheless, what we celebrate is Christ’s birth. I ask you to think for a moment on the days after Jesus was born, and if I may take the liberty to use this term, the days after Christmas.

We know a few things about the moments and days following the birth of our Savior. Scripture tells about the shepherds, the divine appointment with Simeon and Anna in the Temple, the Wise Men, and the flight to Egypt. We know the horror of Herod’s anger requiring the blood of innocent babies to eradicate a rival to his throne.

Beyond these localized events, what had really changed? The shepherds saw Him no more after finding him in the manger and then returning to their fields. Though they told many, the baby was not seen or heard from again by them to our knowledge.

Simeon no doubt died in peace as he had requested the day his eyes looked upon God’s salvation and the light to lighten the Gentiles. Anna continued to tell the news of a child no one else saw. The wise men traveled on back East to their homes, and things soon became quiet.

Nothing had changed…yet everything had changed.

As Jesus would one day teach about a little leaven leavening the whole lump of dough, the Spirit of God that resided in the Christ child began to work and influence those around Him.

Though most perhaps could not give words to what they felt, there came a time, thirty years after His birth, when people were surprisingly ready to rush out en masse to meet a rough-looking prophet in the wilderness, confess their sins, and be baptized unto repentance.

These who obeyed what John preached had their hearts prepared to receive what Jesus would teach and command as His ministry began to unfold. What had happened during that first Christmas though not immediately obvious, had truly determined what happened after.

I know that sounds simple, but can you see the parallel for your own life? Whatever your expectations for how this season will go—whether you are excited or lonely, busy or bored, contented or anxious, rejoicing or grieving—there is a thing you can do to affect what will come for you after the day of celebration is past.

Suppose you ask God to show you what He wants for you to get from Him this Christmas? “God, help me your way. Help me to receive from You what you came to give me, and to walk in it for all the days after Christmas.”

As in the beginning, the receiving of what God designed to bring will involve repentance. As in the beginning, the receiving of it will involve baptism for the remission of sins. As in the beginning, the receiving of it will involve the glorious infilling of the Holy Ghost. You see, once the leaven of the Word of God manifested in the flesh had completed its initial work, there was a Gospel to be preached in all the earth by Jesus followers that embodied the death, burial, and resurrection of the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world:

Acts 2:37-40 KJV
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.

The PROMISE, heralded by the angels, seen by the shepherds, affirmed by Anna and Simeon, and worshipped by the Wise Men, is unto YOU. Will you choose to walk the path to receive what Jesus came to bring? I pray you find the JOY that was meant to be yours after Christmas.

If you have already experienced this promise but are away from that place in God right now, here is a time to reach for Him again with all your heart and allow Him to restore to you the gift He came to bring.

And if you are currently walking in that truth but find yourself harried, worn, and weary, oh, precious child of God, take a moment to wait before Him, to raise your hands and seek Him for who He is, and let Him joy in flooding you again with His love, hope, peace, strength, and courage. Remember Jesus words to announce His ministry to the world:

Luke 4:18-19 KJV
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

If I use this time to reach out to the One who fulfilled His Word to us by coming to take away our sins and put His Spirit within us, with a will to receive what He came this year to being me, I will walk in a stronger place after Christmas, no matter what happens around me.

A Perfect Prayer

The information that flowed from the 20th anniversary of 9/11 touched me more deeply than any in recent years.

Reading the transcript detailing the plans of Flight 93 passengers to overpower their hijackers brought the awe of their bravery back to me in fresh waves. I have purchased and am reading Let’s Roll, the book by Todd Beamer’s widow, Lisa. She describes being surprised by an invitation to attend the President’s address to Congress and to the nation, and especially by the repeated ovations she received: an outpouring of gratitude for actions that no doubt spared the destruction of either the White House or the Capitol. I was moved by the desire of so many to say, “Thank you” to one of the heroes, in the person of his grieving widow.

I have also been touched by the role of Lisa Jefferson, the Verizon Airfone operator who handled Todd’s call from Flight 93, giving him information on the other hijackings and the devastation they had brought. Todd and several other passengers and crew relied on her nerves of steel as they made their decision which we will always remember by the last words she heard from Todd: “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll!”

I have read from Mrs. Jefferson’s account in an interview five years later, that the phone had to be taken from her hand some fifteen minutes after it went silent, even after she was informed that Flight 93 had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. She was still calling Todd’s name.

She, Todd, and the others had hoped that this could somehow end well. She had promised to stay with him until it was over. She could not lightly walk away from that firm commitment. Her book about the experience is Called: “Hello, my name is Mrs. Jefferson. I understand your plane is being hijacked.” I have purchased that book, also.

In reading between these two women’s stories the other night, another event from that week in 2001 ran through my mind. You would not have known of this one unless you worked at Ellisville State School, a residential facility in Mississippi serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I was Coordinator of In-Home Services at the time, having gotten that position after ten years working in one of the four units on the main campus. Though I had begun working with individuals in the community, my office remained on the facility’s sprawling grounds.

The Director had called a chapel service for those whose duties allowed time to attend. We all felt so broken, though Mississippi is a very long way from New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., or Pennsylvania. I once had voiced my lack of desire to ever visit the Big Apple with the words, “I haven’t lost anything in New York City.” By the evening of 09/11/2001, I knew I had lost much there: they were my brothers and sisters in many ways, though I had never seen them, and would likely never meet their families.

I had been asked ahead of time to say the closing prayer for the service. As it proceeded, I sat back in one of the little wooden pews, admiring the stained glass windows in the small chapel building. It was used at that time for services on Sundays for the people who lived in the facility.

My memory fails me as to all who spoke or what was actually said, but I recall the theme being of hope, the need to be united, and that God is not shaken by what shakes us, therefore we need to turn to Him as the source of help for ourselves and our nation. I appreciated the administration of our facility recognizing our need to come together.

As the service drew toward closing, I felt a stirring I could not dismiss. What was happening within me felt unique and somehow separate from the events unfolding around me. I knew I needed to tune in to the direction God would have my prayer take when my turn came.

I am of the Apostolic Pentecostal faith. Thirty-five years ago God did a work in my understanding of what it means to live for Him, and after I repented and my sins were washed away in Jesus’ name as I was baptized in that only saving name, I was filled with the Holy Ghost as the disciples in the Early Church were filled. By God’s grace and mercy I have walked in that manner of living for God since then and strive to walk daily in the Spirit, as the Apostle Paul said:

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Thus, as I was approaching my time to contribute to this service I sought to submit my heart and will to God for the prayer He would have come out of my mouth. Many options were available to me: pleas for God’s mercy, comfort, direction, courage, understanding, and peace. He is the source of all these.

But when I was at last called upon and stood to bow my head and pray, none of those words would come. If you have experienced praying in the Holy Ghost, you will understand that I had two options as I opened my mouth: obey what God would have me say or quench the Spirit. I had no desire to do the latter, and the former required overcoming any fears of what others would think of a prayer that was outside the main stream. At last, I realized the only words to utter without quenching the Spirit were these:

“I REPENT!”

I know that I said it loudly and clearly, for I remember the anguish of spirit that accompanied the cry of my heart for myself and my nation. I don’t remember anything else I said in the prayer, or whether I was moved to speak in tongues during it. I only have the sense that it followed the lines of acknowledging, like the prophet Daniel once did (Dan. 9:4-19), my sin and the sin of our nation that had brought us to that hour, our need to receive God’s cleansing by His mercy and to take on His righteousness. It was a perfect prayer for that hour. Once I felt the Spirit had lifted, I ended the prayer and the service concluded.

Outside the anointing that brings boldness we can sometimes wonder how our actions will be perceived by any who do not understand. The comments I recall were positive, as acknowledging the need for raw honesty in the sight of God.

The prayer I felt to utter for the group that day remains valid. We face many more obstacles now than could have been imagined in that week, and our own response still needs to be, “I repent! God have mercy on me, on our nation, on our leaders, and on the future of our children and their children.” Repentance must bring the desire to seek God and to obey what we see in His Word.

I urge you to take time to look deeply into your own heart and pray your own prayer of repentance, then ask God how He would have you change your direction. It is time to reach for God’s Word, to obey the Gospel and keep His commandments with the Spirit living and moving in us. The end, of which I feel 9/11 was only a warning, is drawing very near.

Be it Unto Me: Thoughts on Mary’s story

If I could have known how the words I spoke that day would carry me through so many broken places, I am not sure I could have even uttered them. But, oh the joy that has come from my surrender and my steps through paths that were unknown then!

Scene one

It was an angel! A real-live breathing, shining, frightening angel. I was no one. A young woman in a small town from a small family with no right to hear the words that he came to bring. Yet he was real, and his words struck my heart, touching something deep within me that I had not known was there until that moment. Feelings rose that I could not put into words. And when he showed me what was to come, what God had said what was going to be, I was amazed. He answered my one question, “How can these things be?” He told me the Holy Ghost will do the work, and I believed wonderful things were about to unfold just as he said! There was nothing left for this simple handmaiden of the Lord to reply, except, “Be it unto me according to thy word!”

Scene two

Not here! Not now! Not in this horrible, nasty, crowded, confusion of a city with a census in full swing. Could I not have stayed where I had prepared to bring this God-touched child, this God-conceived holy one to birth? How could this happen? Have I already brought shame on my Lord who trusted me to carry this child? And yet here He is, my precious baby, Jesus! And yet still, shepherds – of all people, shepherds – are here surrounding this lowly manger to tell us that not one angel has appeared to them, but a whole heavenly host of angels filling the sky! The angels have told them that He is here! I see it. How could this not be the will of God, even as wrong and out of place as a birth in this stable seems to be? As far as it was from my plan? I must say, “Be it unto me!”

Scene three

Egypt! Why here? Our people were warned never to return to the land of our fathers’ captivity, and yet Joseph says an angel showed him this is where we are to be kept safe. It started with those wise men, majestic kings from the East bringing their unspeakably beautiful gifts. What riches! We had never seen such wealth in all our lives. They bowed in reverence to this precious child as to the true King of Kings! They even shared how they were led by a star to the very spot where we stayed with our young child.

But they had stopped to ask that wicked King Herod where He was. Oh, how long will we be here? The angel in Joseph’s dream said that Herod would be seeking Jesus’ life. Even now I have a horrible foreboding of what could have happened in Bethlehem after we left. Herod is so ruthless. Not one child would he spare in his desperate attempt to clutch his kingdom to himself. Whatever God’s plan for keeping this treasure He has brought into our lives safe from the enemy’s wiles, I can only say, “Be it unto me!”

Scene four

I do not understand. Crowds of people throng the house where He sits to teach. Is it safe? Is it wise to allow this to happen with the Romans about everywhere? Will they not at some point come here to see what is going on? These rulers, unlike the ones who were sitting within the temple when He was a boy of twelve, reasoning with them like the wisest of priests, now keenly watch him, looking for every word they think might be wrong. Oh, would they not love an opportunity to turn Him over to the filthy clutches of those demonic soldiers who delight to do us hurt at every opprtunity? I must go to Him. I am His mother. If anyone can show him how he is putting himself at risk, His brothers and I must be the ones to speak reason unto Him.

Scene five

We are here at the house where too many are gathered. We cannot even get in at the door! I must have someone tell Him we are here. He will come for me.

How can this be? His only response to the summons that His mother and His brothers are here and waiting to talk to Him was, “Who is my mother? And who are my brothers?”

What is this? Who has He become? I know He would never have said these things when we were alone in our home where I raised Him and nurtured Him and cared for Him. How has He become this person who does not seem to value His own mother?

Yet, what He said – what was it? “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and my mother.” It recalls to me the moment when we understood what we thought was disrespect, as He intentionally chose to stay behind without a word to us, knowing we were leaving Jerusalem: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” At only twelve years old He had put this thing He must do ahead of our relationship. Is that what He is communicating to me now? “If you want to be among those who are close to me, it cannot be by hindering what I am doing or asking me to place any earthly kinship ahead of my calling. I must only do the work of my Father. Do you want to be a part of that, or will you stand on ceremony, insisting you are right, and not move closer to me?” Oh, dearest Jesus, I will go with you. I will follow you and not suggest that you must go my way. With all my heart I cry unto you now, “Be it into me according to thy word!”

Scene six

All my fears are coming true in one day. Arrested, beaten, and now, a cross! A cross! Oh, if only I could have saved him from this end. I knew they would not abide His teachings going against their authority forever. Even I could never have fathomed the depth of their hatred for Him. No more cruel death was ever known than this. How can I even bear to look up at His bruised and bloodied face? And yet, I must! If I had not known him as my son, I could not even recognize him now! The words flood back to me of the aged Simon when we had brought our precious eight-day-old baby to be circumcised: “Yea, and a sword shall pierce thine own soul, also!” There were times I believed my pain was that prophecy coming true, but today there is no doubt left.

Oh, now He speaks to me! From his agony as He hangs there, he is mindful of me! “Woman, behold thy son,” and to His beloved disciple, John, “Son, behold thy mother.” Now John is here to comfort and support me, though he has no words. We are all broken together. I am a mother who submitted to the will of God for bearing a child conceived by the Holy Ghost. I do not understand how it could have come to this. Oh, how can it be, that in my heart swell the words that I uttered to the angel and to the God who sent him to me. With my head bowed in sorrow, my spirit somehow whispers, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”

Scene seven

Risen! That tomb is empty! He has been seen now of over five hundred people! Ascended – caught up into the Heavens in the clouds. An angel was there, declaring, “…He shall come again in like manner…” Instructions to wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father.

I must be there! I must receive this promise! I will not miss anything my risen Lord has asked me to do. As beautiful as it was when the Holy Ghost overshadowed me to conceive, what will it be like to receive the Holy Ghost as Jesus said?

An upper room. Fervent prayer. Then, tongues of fire! A rushing mighty wind! One hundred twenty of us all speaking in unknown tongues at once! Joy unspeakable and full of glory! No joy I have ever felt compares to the love, the flood of power and joy flowing out of my innermost being! It is truly the river of living water Jesus spoke of.

Peter is preaching to the amazed crowd who have gathered to hear and to see. He tells their convicted hearts what to do about their sin. They know now that they have crucified the Lord of Glory! He gives them hope: “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”

We are being baptized in the lovely name, the only saving name, the name of Jesus. Three thousand people today. This will grow and cover the whole earth as God desires.

I know the officials will fight against it, as they fought everything else that He did, but I know, too, that this is the reason why He came! I see it now. I understand all that He did, taught, and suffered was to bring us – even me – to this appointed time when God’s laws would be written in our hearts, and this precious Son I bore and raised and gave up to die would conquer death and come to live in me as the Holy Ghost! What more is there to come? I cannot say, but I will shout these words throughout my days on earth and into eternity, “Be it unto me according to thy word! Oh, hallelujah! Hallelujah! Be it unto me!”