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And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:5
I love the story of ‘The Polar Express’. This simple Christmas story captures the wonder and excitement of the Christmas celebration and the process in which we all come to realize that the wonder of Santa Claus is simply a story that many of us grow out of as we become ‘older and more refined’.
But ‘The Polar Express’ is also a symbol of what happens when hope dies. As we grow older we lose hope in the myth of Santa Claus, but we never lose the dream of ‘what if’. We never lose the wonder of what lay behind those wrapped packages under the tree or the excitement when the gift we made or purchased is celebrated by the one we chose to bless with it.
Losing ‘hope’ in Santa Claus isn’t a terrible tragedy. We learn to outgrow Santa. Losing hope in other areas, on the other hand, can cripple us for life or, at best leave us bruised, battered and hobbling along the path we call life.
We put hope in relationships, careers, and our health. But relationships fail. Jobs come to an end. We come to a point in our lives when we realize…we’re old, and with age can come the realization that some of our dreams just simply will not come true.
Hope fails when our hope is placed in things that, because of time and circumstance, fail. Even the best of relationships will end with death. Jobs and careers change with society. Aging is a natural consequence of time.
Hope that endures the tests of time can only come through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Relationship isn’t an object, it’s an organism. It’s not something you do; it’s something you work on every day. Hope that is built on a love relationship with God never ever fails because love never fails.
Too often we put our hope in God and when things don’t go the way we ‘hope’ we instinctively play the blame game. God’s an easy one to blame. You can’t see Him. He makes all these claims to be powerful and loving and merciful and just yet, we are surrounded by hate and injustice and death. But in those quiet, brutally honest times with our thoughts we have to admit that the pain we suffer isn’t the result of God, but the actions of evil people around us.
Hope built on God will not spare us the pain and the bruises of life. Hope built on God may not immediately take away the pain of divorce or the crippling action of disease or the consequences of addictive behavior or our poor choices.
Hope built on God will enable us to grow in relationship with Him and help us to endure all the trials of life. Hope in earthly things will fail. Hope in God never fails because all of God’s love is poured out on us through His Spirit and it fills our inner being with peace in the midst of the storm.
PRAYER: Holy God, I look around me and see so many things that have failed in my life. Some of those things are a result of my own stupid choices. Some are result of unrealistic expectations of myself, others or even you. I ask that your Holy Spirit would empower me to place all my hope in you so that I can have the inner peace I need to endure life because of your love. In Jesus name I pray this. Amen.
You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. Psalm 139:1-2
With the popularity of the internet and various networking sites, like FaceBook and Twitter, the concept of ‘knowing someone’ has become somewhat clouded. We can ‘know’ someone from other countries who we have never met anywhere but in cyberspace.
In Psalm 139, King David makes the statement “You know me” concerning God. The knowledge God has of us is so much more intimate than we can imagine. I can choose what information I let you know about me. I can tone down the bad stuff about me and put a nice coat of frosting on the good stuff to make it even better.
I can choose to hide the things I don’t want you to know, those hidden thoughts, dreams and fantasies or those opinions of you (and others) that contradict the smile on my face. I can try to hide the pain, shame and embarrassment of how I really feel about me as well. In fact, most times, people we see as happy-go-lucky and conceited are really insecure and looking for something good to grasp onto about themselves.
God knows me. Think on that for a minute. The Creator/Sustainer of the universe, not just my world, not just the galaxy we live in, THE universe, knows me. He and He alone, sees clearly behind the mask we use to show people the person we’d like to be. The walls we build to protect ourselves and keep others at a distance do nothing to keep Him from entering in and looking around.
Every thought, every emotion, every hurt and pain, every time you’ve been emotionally or physically abused has been seen by Him and He feels your pain. He hears your unspoken prayers, sees your unseen tears and walks with you through the fearful times when everyone else thinks you are strong.
Remember one more thing. King David was not a pleasant person. He was a murderer. He slept with a married woman and got her pregnant. He ignored the time one of his sons raped one of his daughters. He lied. He cheated. Yet in all this God calls Him a man after His own heart. God saw through all David’s weaknesses and failures and loved him anyway. He does the same for you.
PRAYER: Once again I am in awe of Your love O God my Father. There is no hiding with you. You know my deepest longings and pain. You cry with me and celebrate with me. I praise you for who you are and ask that you would help me, as I go through my day, to sense Your love and presence during the dark times of my life. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out. Proverbs 10:9
He was caught red-handed. There was no way to hide it now. It was in the open. His integrity lay in a shattered heap on the ground. How would he face his family? How would he face the family of the person he killed? What would happen with his faith? Would God act swiftly and with revenge? All his years of waiting, running, fighting for what was right was destroyed in an instant.
He felt anguish, guilt, fear, shame and, interestingly, relief. I’m talking about the story of David and Bathsheba. Here he was, King of Israel and caught in a lovers triangle. He’d slept with another man’s wife and got her pregnant. He had her husband murdered to try to cover up his crime. He ran, but he couldn’t hide.
Before we are too hard on David we need to look at our own lives. Maybe it isn’t adultery and murder that plague us. It could be anger, lust, addictions of any kind, doubt, or envy. We may be able to hide those things for awhile. Some of us get good enough to hide them for years! There are a few that are able to live their entire lives fooling other people. But even if we can fool everyone else, we will still have internal consequences to deal with.
Sociologists and psychologists tell us that many emotional, physical and spiritual issues in a person’s life can be traced to one thing: guilt or unresolved guilt. Guilt is a powerful force that can affect us in every aspect of our lives. We do things to try to cover up that guilt, but those things make matters worse. We grow fearful of what other people may think so we live in fear. We blame others or try to drown our sorrows in new relationships, drugs and alcohol or some other activity. We run in fear of being found out because we don’t want to suffer the shame or consequences. The things we do to try to hide our ‘secret lives’ only make matters worse and take a devastating toll on our personal lives and relationships.
People who finally ‘come clean’ often express a feeling of relief. They don’t have to hide anymore. They can get the support they need for the healing process and their entire outlook on life changes for the better. Coming clean may mean we have to confess some things publicly, but most importantly it means being honest with God and with ourselves. He is the only one who can heal us of our wounds. Confession of our struggle isn’t a sign of weakness but of strength.
Regardless of what you are struggling with today, Jesus can offer you the healing you need. He doesn’t expect you to clean yourself up first. He won’t be critical when you fall (again and again). Jesus knows the root cause of our actions when no one else does. He isn’t about making us feel guilty; Jesus wants to make us feel clean.
PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I thank You for knowing the struggle I go through every day. I’m afraid of being caught. I’m losing sleep. I feel completely out of control. I even doubt your existence at times because the pain is so bad. Forgive me for failing so many times. Help me to have the courage to change what I need to change so I can live in integrity. Amen.
Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank Proverbs 22:29
The difference between excellence and mediocrity can often be determined by our attitude about God, ourselves and others. Of the three, our view of ourselves is perhaps the most powerful adversary to our rising to excellence.
If we see ourselves as failures, we will most likely never rise to excellence. We look at past failures and say to ourselves “I’ll never amount to anything. Everything I’ve ever done has failed. The more we dwell on our failures the easier it is to become afraid to fail, complacent in what we do, or just give up all together. I wonder if even the Apostle Paul was near that point when he wrote in his letter to the Romans “The things I want to do I never do, the things I hate doing, I always do.”
The Bible is full of stories of people just like you who have failed in life. Time and again they’ve picked themselves up only to be knocked down. But God used them in mighty ways. Don’t let the past keep you from excelling into the future.
Another hindrance to our rising to the level of excellence is our view of what success really is. Often we measure success by what other people have done or are doing. This is true in the spiritual realm, the physical realm, and the emotional/relational realm. We look at someone else’s job, skills, ‘spirituality’, spouse, etc. and say, I’ll never succeed. Look at how well Mary prays or how well Joe does his job.
Excellence is a personal thing. Your Heavenly Father is the one that bestowed gifts on you. He is the one that gives you opportunities to use those gifts. Excellence in your corner of the world may never be seen by others outside of your own circle. That doesn’t make it less excellent. Stop comparing yourself to others. Be the very best you can be. Accept your flaws, work to correct what you can and do what you can to make your corner of the world brighter.
When our past gets in the way or we are surrounded by people who seem to have ‘made it’ it’s easy to play the blame game as well. We ask God why He won’t do for us what He did for them. We may even get angry with Him and doubt His wisdom, power or existence. That’s the time to step back and remember that God’s desire is for you to rely on Him, not to have a bunch of friends and be famous. Excellence to God is being godly parents, children and members of our community who walk in close relationship to Him.
Stop comparing yourself to others. Don’t let the past act as handcuffs in keeping you from living the future to its fullest. Allow God to work through you to be the best you can be. He isn’t looking for cookie-cutter Christians. He’s looking for people of excellence.
PRAYER: Father, there are some many times when I’ve allowed my view of myself or the view others have of me to keep me from being excellent for you. Forgive me for basing who I am on what I see in others. Empower me to be excellent in everything I do today, in each life I touch and every task I do. For I exist to glorify You, not myself. In Jesus name, Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 