The one who turns night to day and winter to spring can usher a new day and season into what man would call the most hopeless of lives. Change is not an impossible dream. It’s just a matter of tapping into the right power source.
Source: Tapping into the Power Supply
Photo Credit: Free stock photo: Light Bulbs, Hanging, Lighting – Free Image on …
I thought TV without electricity was an impossibility until I lived for a short time in a squatter community in the Philippines. The community ran along the tracks—so close you could reach your hand out the window and touch a passing train. There was no running water, no refrigeration, and no electricity. You’d think that would mean no TV, but somehow the resourceful people of this community found a way to tap into the city power source so they could watch their favorite shows.
Considering the situation, I realize if we really want something, we’ll find a way to get it. We may live each day believing we’re stuck in our current circumstances. But if we really want to change, we’ll find a way to tap into the power that enables us to change.
One of the biggest lies of our generation is that change is impossible. What a hopeless, depressing thought—that no matter how much we desire to be different, we’re trapped for life, bound by habits that steal all life and joy, stuck in self-destructive ways, doomed for broken relationships.
The good news is that change is possible. People may say that you were born this way, and you can never change. But what is impossible with man is possible with God. The one who turns night to day and winter to spring can usher a new day and season into what man would call the most hopeless of lives. Change is not an impossible dream. It’s just a matter of tapping into the right power source.
“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26)
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” (Isaiah 43:19)
There’s been a lot of verbal stone-throwing in our world lately. Those who disagree with the beliefs or lifestyles of another group don’t hesitate to speak harsh, condemning words, and those with opposing viewpoints are quick to return the favor. Truth and love are lost in the war of words, leaving the world with a skewed perspective of God—some thinking him a hateful tyrant, others believing him a lenient father who smiles and winks when those he so loves do as they please.
In Jesus’ day, an adulterous woman was caught in the line of fire, an angry mob surrounding her, stones in hand, prepared to hasten her death. When Jesus showed up, the mob hoped to trap him in their extremes. Would he grab a stone and hurl it? Or would he embrace the woman’s lifestyle that likely tore families, and her own life, apart?
Jesus catered to no one. Instead, he knelt in the sand and started writing. When the crowds questioned him, he stood, saying, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he knelt again, writing, as one by one the accusers dropped their stones and left the scene.
What was he writing that so pierced the hearts of the crowd? Many speculate he’d outlined the Ten Commandments, a visual reminder of how far all had fallen equally short. In the end, he stood, telling the woman: “Has no one condemned you? Then neither do I condemn you.”
Most of us would like to close the story there, defining love by the lack of condemnation. But Jesus went a step further, saying, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” He did not condemn the sinner, but he did confront the sin in all its destructive capacities. True, it’s unloving to condemn. Yet it’s also unloving to turn a blind eye when someone’s life choices lead them on a pathway of certain death.
Jesus understood something about the woman, and the crowds so quick to condemn. We’re all yearning: longing for something we don’t have…seeking to fill a hole in our hearts…knowing there has got to be something better. In the midst of our search, we’ve all fallen far short of that which will truly fulfill. To condemn others for seeking to fill their void is to condemn ourselves, for haven’t we all turned to broken cisterns that hold no water? Yet for those who’ve found God alone can fill that void, how very unloving to tell another “go now, do whatever pleases you,” all the while knowing our greatest pleasure comes when our identity is found in our loving Creator.
Note that whatever Jesus wrote, he wrote in the sand. Our self-made identities are not written in stone. We are not defined by our habits. All we’ve done, seeming so worthy of condemnation, is written in sand, washed away by the love of God the moment we choose to turn from the lie that tells us freedom is doing whatever we please to the truth that freedom is found in a life lived for the one who created us with greater things in mind.
Photo Credit: Love Written in the Sand | Flickr by All Things Sprite and Beautiful
True faith believes God has our best interests in mind, whether or not his answers align with our desires.
Source: The Most Difficult Prayer
Photo Credit: Driftwood – Free photos on Pixabay
In the end, it’s true, “In this world, we will have trouble.” But Jesus also said, “take heart! I have overcome the world.” That’s the hope I cling to.
Source: When Storms Roll In
Photo Credit: Cloudy Sky Across The Horizon | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
It was one of THOSE days today. The kind where darkness threatens to descend and overtake any hint of joy. Where I’m tempted to let the blanket of discouragement douse out the flicker of hope.
I’ve been writing a lot about trials lately, but quite honestly it seems I’ve been in the clear for a few months. After a long rollercoaster season of ups and downs, I’ve come to the point where I can see clearly enough to write encouragement from a higher perspective. It’s not that it’s been an easy year, in particular, just a less afflicted year.
Then came some discouraging news, a new wave of challenges brewing on the horizon. I guess I’m not off the hook, after all. Didn’t Jesus say, “in this world, we will have trials”? Yet when they come, we’re tempted to throw those OTHER promises in his face—the lighter, easier ones that don’t deal with suffering. “Why have you forsaken me?” we cry, forgetting it’s not him who’s forsaken us.
Maybe, in the end, it’s us who’ve forsaken his word, looking to it only for the promises of ease and comfort. We accuse God of giving us a stone when we asked for bread, not remembering the word that declares God a loving father who gives his children what they need. It’s a matter of how we see each gift he gives.
When his precious daughter Rachel was killed in the 1999 Columbine massacre, Darrel Scott talked about developing “see through” vision. When it seemed he’d been handed a stone, he was determined to see through his awful tragedy to the good that could come from it. He devoted his life, and his daughter’s memory, to bring blessing in the midst of evil.
I can’t say I’ve yet encountered anything near as tragic as Darrel Scott and his family, but I can say his sentiments about “see through” vision have kept me over the years through the various trials I’ve encountered. I’m learning to take what’s given me and see that God can take even the most hopeless of circumstances and bring forth life.
In the end, it’s true, “In this world, we will have trouble.” But Jesus also said, “take heart! I have overcome the world.” That’s the hope I cling to.
“Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)
Photo Credit: Rainy Skies on the Horizon | Flickr – Photo Sharing!
Words have the power to free and encourage, strengthen and uplift. If our words are to gain such power, we must go through many difficulties to bring them to birth.
Source: The Writer’s Burden
Photo Credit: File:Butterflies looks like flower.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
This Life & Beyond 
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