? will

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and he will direct your paths."  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Dr. Baker James Cauthen resigned from the faculty of Southwestern Seminary and the pastorate of Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Ft. Worth to take his family to China in 1939, in the midst of war.  

His explanation was simple: the safest place in all the world to be is the center of the will of God.

Before he left for China, Dr. Cauthen said to his friend Bill Howse: "Bill, many people are making a lot out of what we are trying to do, but for us it's simply the will of God.  It's such a good feeling that I can say that if our ship is bombed in Hong Kong harbor and we never set foot on Chinese soil, I will have a sense of completeness because I will have been doing the will of God for me."

Remember. The Will of God will never take you...

    Where the grace of God cannot keep you,

    Where the arms of God cannot support you,

    Where the hands of God cannot mold you.

    Where the power of God cannot endow you.

The will of God will never take you...

    Where the spirit of God cannot work through you,

    Where the riches of God cannot supply you,

    Where the wisdom of God cannot teach you,

    Where the army of God cannot protect you,

The will of God will never take you...

    Where the love of God cannot enfold you,

    Where the mercy of God cannot sustain you,

    Where the Word of God cannot feed you,

    Where the authority of God cannot overrule for you.

The will of God will never take you...

    Where the comfort of God cannot dry your tears,

    Where the peace of God cannot calm your fears,

    Where the miracles of God cannot be done for you,

    Where the omnipresence of God cannot find you.

wait

Those who wait upon the Lord, will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like the eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.  (Isaiah 40:31)

...for twelve years she had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. (Mark 5:25)

"While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. "Your daughter is dead," they said, "Why bother the teacher any more?"  (Mark 5:35)

Parents waiting for children out past curfew know it. Couples having trouble conceiving a child know it. A family separated by overseas military service knows it. A person needing an organ transplant knows it. A candidate for law or medical school knows it. A pregnant mom 10 days past due knows it. A person struggling to be hired for a job knows it. In fact, at one time or another, most of us come to know this brooding beast. It's the long wait -- that drawn out time of fretful anticipation and extended longing.

"Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength..."

Often, this is easier said than done. Before we get to "mount up on wings like eagles," we often have to obediently grind away through the brutal passage of agonizing time. Before we can "run and not grow weary," we have to trudge on as anticipation dims and hope's flickering flame fights against the winds of despair. Many times, we just have to keep walking and trust that some hidden grace will help us "not faint."

That's what makes this story of Jairus' daughter so compelling to me. Like you, I don't like to wait. In my mind, if there is any privilege for those with power and position, one should not have to wait! "They" surely don't have to wait like I do. "They" get to move to the head of line. "They" get to throw around their weight and get what they want when they want it.

In this case, however, "they" (or more accurately, "he") didn't. (see Mark 5:21-43) Instead, Jairus' humbling approach to Jesus, an approach that could cost him everything in sacred society, was interrupted by a desperate woman who had faced "the long wait" herself as she had hopelessly gone to every healer available to her, and no doubt prayed incessantly for her own cure. This woman, who could not go into the synagogue because of her uncleanness, derailed the hope parade of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue.

I find two things amazing about both of them. First, neither complains about his or her wait. Not the woman, who has spent her fortune on false medical hopes, nor Jairus, who has spent his respect capital to associate himself with a suspicious teacher. Both wait for their Lord to act.

Impatiently waiting? Probably! But, they waited and received their grace. Second, they both received the personal attention of the Lord -- the man of power who could expect that attention and the woman on the fringes who, in her day, could not expect it.

Jesus refused to let the woman have an anonymous miracle!

He personally and specifically blessed her. Jairus' daughter would not be healed for the crowd, but only in the closed intimacy of Jesus' chosen few and Jairus' family. Both waited faithfully. Both received the personal attention of the Master! Each received his or her heart's greatest desire.

This is not a story about long ago and far away. It is a reminder that Jesus is there for those who wait. It is a renewal of the ancient hope that God will act for those who don't give up during the long wait. You see, the issue isn't the wait. Instead, it is all about refusing to give up hope when the journey seems so long (12 years for the woman) and the problems so insurmountable (a dead 12-year old daughter for Jairus).

Maybe you face the long wait right now. Maybe your heartbreak or shame or disappointment or loss seems insurmountable. If so, I want to encourage you to come back to this story of the powerless woman and the powerful man and remember the place their broken hearts met, the place their broken dreams were mended, and the place their long wait ended. Know that place is really a person, and his name is Jesus.

-phil ware

? spider

Last Saturday (Sabbath) our pastor told an interesting story and, had it not been serious, it would have been funny. He told about a fellow in a support group who for months on end kept praying about a personal problem. 

Week after week he would pray with seemingly great conviction, "Oh God, clean the cobwebs out of my life... clean the cobwebs out of my life!"

 

Finally, in utter frustration the leader of the prayer group broke into the man's prayer and prayed rather boisterously, "Oh God, KILL THE SPIDER in this man's life!" 

 

If we are struggling with a besetting sin or bad habit, what can we do about it? Certainly pray and ask God for deliverance - but also pray that he will show us the root cause of our problem because, more often than not, our repetitive failures are the fruit of a deeper root. 

God not only wants to deliver us from habitual sins but also free us from the deeper root cause.

tangled

Knoxville Airport - waiting to board the plane: I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say that because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least of which is your ego...

I tried to keep from staring but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones. The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy grey hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long. Clean, but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered reading somewhere that he was dead. So this man in the airport... an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere?....

There I sat trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man. I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing.

I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. "Oh no, God please no." I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, "Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. 'I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!"...

There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, "Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane." Then I heard it..."I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair."

The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, "God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm you're girl! You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am on him. I am going to witness to this man."

Again as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. "That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair." I looked up at God and quipped, "I don't have a hirbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane, How am I suppose to brush his hair without a hairbrush?"

God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: "I will thoroughly finish you unto all good works." (2 Tim 3:7) I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man, and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"

He looked back at me and said, "What did you say?" "May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?" To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that. At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"

At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If you really want to."

Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, "Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush."

"I have one in my bag," he responded. I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but I must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull.

A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everyone else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this sounds so strange but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while. The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's.

His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's. I slipped the brush back in the bag, went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knees, and said, "Sir, do you know my Jesus?"

He said, "Yes, I do." Well, that figures.

He explained, "I've known Him since I married my bride." "She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior." He said, "You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself. What a mess I must be for my bride."

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?"

I said, "Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!" And we got to share. I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted because you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way... all because I didn't want people to think I was strange. God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

- beth moore

? apology

Many of you are familiar with the cartoon strip, Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin is a little boy with an overactive imagination and a stuffed tiger, Hobbes, who comes to life as his imaginary friend. In one cartoon strip, Calvin turns to his friend Hobbes and says, "I feel bad I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I'm sorry I did that."

 Hobbes replies, "Maybe you should apologize to her."

 Calvin thinks about it for a moment and then responds, "I keep hoping there's a less obvious solution."

Many of us keep looking for a less obvious solution.  We know we've done something to hurt someone around us.  But we are so hesitant to say, "I'm sorry."  I'm convinced that while those two words are some of the hardest words for us to say, they are two words that have the most potential to improve our relationships.

What a difference it would make in our marriages, in our friendships, in our churches, if we weren't so obstinate in refusing to admit that we've done something wrong.  Our pride stands in the way, and we continue to search for a less obvious solution.

"Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way.  First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24)

-alan smith

living

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."  (John 10:10b)

I remember picking up a book one day called "Sleeping Through the Revolution" by Dr. Paul Rees . In that book, I came across a quotation from Dr. Stanley Jones' book, "Abundant Living".  This is how the quote ran : "The early Christians did not say in dismay, 'Look what the world has come to', but they said in delight, 'Look what has come to the world!'"

They saw not merely the ruin but the resources for the reconstruction . They saw not merely that sin did abound but that grace did much more abound ."  

Dr. Jones added this significant sentence, "The whole secret of abundant living can be summed up in this sentence : 'Not your responsibility but your response to His ability ."'

I like that, don't you?  What a reminder for today!

Not your responsibility but your response to His ability ."

! run

There's an old African proverb that says, "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."

When we awaken each morning, we must realize that "The devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8)

In Psalm 5, we read that David came to God early in the morning and asked for his protection and help. We also need to pay attention to the vital importance of prayer.

"The Secret"
By Ralph Cushman

I met God in the morning
When the day was at its best,
And His Presence came like sunrise,
Like a glory in my breast.

All day long the Presence lingered,
All day long He stayed with me,
And we sailed in perfect calmness
O'er a very troubled sea.

Other ships were blown and battered,
Other ships were sore distressed,
But the winds that seemed to drive them,
Brought to me a peace and rest.

Then I thought of other mornings,
With a keen remorse of mind,
When I, too, had loosed the moorings,
With the presence left behind.

So, I think I know the secret,
Learned from many a troubled way:
You must seek Him in the morning
If you want Him through the day!

....genuine

"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." Matt 15:8

There's an excellent illustration that demonstrates the difference between intellectual faith and genuine faith. In the late 1890's, a famous tightrope walker strung a wire across Niagara Falls. As thousands of people watched, he inched his way along the wire from one side of the falls to the other.

When he got to the other side, the crowd cheered wildly. Finally, the tightrope walker was able to quiet the crowd and shouted to them, 'Do you believe in me?'.  The crowd shouted back, 'We believe! We believe!'.

Again he quieted the crowd and shouted to them, 'I'm going back across the falls on the tightrope.  But this time I'm going to do it with a wheelbarrow, balancing the front wheel on the tightrope.  Do you believe I can do it?'. The crowd yelled back, 'We believe! We believe!'

There was a reporter there covering the story.  The  tightrope walker turned to him and asked the same question, "Do you believe in me?  Do you believe I can do it?"  The reporter responded, "Yes.  I believe in you.  I believe you can do it."

The tightrope walker responded, "Great.  Get in the wheelbarrow!"

Intellectual faith says, "I believe"  Genuine faith will "get in the wheelbarrow".

reach............

     The story is told about a New York City policeman investigating a case.  He made a phone call, but even before he finished dialing, he somehow knew he had made a mistake. He let it ring, though.  The phone rang once, twice - then someone picked it up. "You've got the wrong number!" a husky male voice snapped before the line went dead.

     Mystified, the policeman dialed again. "I said you got the wrong number!" came the voice.  Once more the phone clicked down.

     "How could he possibly know I had the wrong number?" the policeman asked himself.  A cop is trained to be curious - and concerned.  So he dialed a third time.  "Hey, c'mon," the voice said. "Is this you again?" "Yeah, it's me. I was wondering how you knew I had the wrong number before I even said anything."  "You figure it out!"  The phone slammed down.

     The policeman sat there for a while, thinking.  Then he called the man back.  "Did you figure it out yet?" the man asked.  "The only thing I can think of is nobody ever calls you."  "You got it!"  The phone went dead for the fourth time.

     Chuckling, the officer dialed the man back.  "What do you want now?" asked the man.  "I thought I'd call - just to say hello."  "Hello?  Why?"  "Well, if nobody ever calls you, I thought maybe I should."

     We live in a world of lonely people (many of them, ironically, surrounded by other lonely people).  And all of our technology hasn't made things any better.  Today, you can have hundreds of Facebook friends, but not have one person who will be there when you need them or who will listen when you have something to share.

     Many in the world are like the Psalmist who said, "I am like a desert owl, like an owl living among the ruins.  I lie awake.  I am like a lonely bird on a housetop." (Psalm 102:6-7, NCV).

     Sometimes, that loneliness expresses itself in a gruffness and an apparent attempt to push people away.  In reality, there's an aching desire to know that someone truly cares, that someone loves them unconditionally, and that someone is willing to listen.  Jesus reached out to those who were "outcast", experiencing loneliness.  May we, as his people, keep our eyes open to those around us every day who live in loneliness, and may we share the love of Christ in a way they may have never seen before.

-alan smith