My pastor delivered a sermon on fasting and prayer Sunday, he referenced Matthew 17:19 where the disciples questioned Jesus because they failed at casting out a demon. Step back and consider their situation. They were mirroring Jesus actions so that they could be good followers, but this time they failed. Why?

The disciples had seen Jesus cast out demons, heal lame people, and perform other miracles. So, what did they miss? They noticed the great things but overlooked one smaller thing that seemed less important. They overlooked the times Jesus slipped away in solitude to worship His Father and pray. You have to think, at this time the Holy Spirit hadn’t been sent to man. The disciples were raised in a time when you were separated from God by a curtain, and only the High Priest could enter His presence. They were taught prayers by the religious teachers. They didn’t fully understand the power of intimate prayer.

The reason the demon didn’t flee at their command was because they were mimicking what they saw Jesus do, but they weren’t plugged into the power source that He was. They had seen that power at work and knew it worked. The problem was that they hadn’t learned how to plug into it yet through intimate prayer. We’ve all been there. You watch HGN t.v. and decide to do one of the DIY ideas you saw on there. Fifteen minutes into it, we realize we’re in way over our head!

All of that leads up to this question for me. What is stopping us from seeing spiritual growth, seeing lives changed, seeing demons flee, seeing healing? We now have the Holy Spirit indwelling. We have Jesus’s example on how we should live, how we should pray, how we should love. A question for self examination: Are we living like we have the authority of a Spirit filled disciple, that we have the ability to speak Jesus and see life changing results. Or are we living like God is locked away behind a curtain, and we need someone else to approach Him for us?

Reciting quick prayers of thanks over our food and maybe a bedtime prayer because it’s what we were taught to do isn’t enough. My prayer is that, starting now, we seek a more intimate relationship with our King, that our day is filled with time to pray and seek, that we become Christians who plug into the power source that brings help, hope and love to those we meet.

I wonder if we should consider it a miracle that for centuries/decades men have been putting a razor to their own throat’s and have continued to live. That thought caught me off guard this morning.

Consider all the things that we do, large and small, every day that are completely destructive to us individually and to our environment, both as individuals and as a world community. We are busy cutting our own throats. Yet, we live. There must be purpose!

Consider how the planet has suffered humanity’s polution. We have warred, leaving bombs and destruction everywhere. We have used radioactive bombs and power, which have destroyed land and ecologies for extreme lengths of time. We have created trash which destroys, creating acid rain and so much more. We have stripped the earth of its own resources, which it uses to replenish itself, like forests, watersheds, aquifers and more. We have eaten, created food, hunted and fished, to a point that we have damaged the world we live in like a blight or plague and caused animal and plant extinctions around the world. Yet, we live. There must be a purpose.

We have created kingdoms to our own glory and personal kingdoms around our individual lives, consistently devasting others and consistently failing over time. People have invaded God’s churches and turned them into something to serve themselves instead of the Lord they proclaim. Yet we live. There must be a purpose.

In the midst of all these devastations, and all the ones overlooked in this short blog, there has been mercy, love, compassion. The Lord has offered us choice, and many have chosen Him. He has invaded a corrupted earth with a plan that is so much better. He has given us visions of a life that He intended, a life that does not destroy or consume. He has given hope in times and locations in which hope would seem unreasonable. He has loved us continually when all human logic would call His choice unreasonable and impractical. He has done what only a true God can. He has been superior to all that mankind has to offer, good and bad, and offered Himself as an alternative choice. He has given us Himself, personally and intimately through Jesus, and all the communications He has used through the centuries. 

We, humanity, in our absolute worst, are loved. We, in our absolute best, are loved better that we can create or understand. We are loved by a God who takes time to communicate to us through the Bible, personally, in revelation, through others, in our circumstances, and in our history. His voice is clear to anyone who wants to hear it. We only fail to hear His voice by denying it and reveling in the less that we create for ourselves. The purpose – God wants us to have more and better, the more and better of His intention, not ours.

So how do we rest in the midst of the devastations of this world? We can rest in the knowledge that God has never been without a voice and has never failed to reach out to us throughout all the generations. He has used our own behavior to teach us right from wrong. He has given vision of life, love, truth, hope, and His many other attributes that are better than we can create or duplicate without His presence to make it happen. He has given us choice so we can love because without choice love doesn’t exist. There is a purpose. 

Recently I went to a men’s Bible study gathering. The theme of the conversation was in taking charge of our thought life. “Thoughts are like birds flying overhead. We may not control those  thought flights, but we have power to choose the ones that want to build a nest on our heads,” said one of the men.

Some of the verses were extremely positive and encouraging like Ph 4:8, the prescription for good mental health. However, by the end of the meeting, I was already frustrated. I had turned inspiration into condemnation. 

There is a razor’s edge in perception between seeing what can be done and seeing what you haven’t done. What can be done is inspiring. What you haven’t done is easily condemning, followed by its best friend – shame. In an extremely short moment, the qualities of God are replaced by the realization of Satan. Humanity knows its own death and limitations.

I realized that I had gotten off track pretty quickly and began to pray. The condemnation had arrived because I was considering only what I could do, were I god or in total control – the viewpoint of pride. Scripture tells me that my best on my best day, with everything going my way, isn’t good enough. It is not about what I can do, but what the Lord has done and is doing. 

For me, it means surrender. Surrender in this instance is the realization that bringing my thoughts under control isn’t going to happen by my efforts alone. My success depends on my surrendering to the Lord and realizing that my best isn’t good enough. He is what I need. The work and ministry of the Holy Spirit is what I need. There is no area in my life in which I am capable of saving myself. I need a savior. I need Jesus. 

Jesus has been turning my condemnation back into inspiration where He intended it in the first place. My reliance on Him can give me peace during the process of my growth, before I get to the goal destination. Today is a day of inspiration, not because of the life todo or get better list, but because of the person of Jesus.who walks with me each minute, despite my inabilities. He is the more I need.

Heather Jewell

Well, I found this little composition last night that I wrote in  late November 2020.  Even though its over a year old, I almost find it more applicable to my family, my close friends, and myself than it was last year.  2021 wasn’t a cake walk for a lot of people around me.

Maybe this will be a blessing to someone (someone patient enough to read 500 words in a Facebook post LOL!).    

Merry Christmas, friends.

We Wait In Wonder

 November 20, 2020

The whole world waits, holding their breath, for something wonderful.  Something to fill them with awe.  The anticipation and hope of coming joy, salvation, the promise of things being set right.  

The year is 1 AD (ish).  The birth of the Messiah takes place while the created world watches in wonder.  Most people are completely oblivious because the coming did not fit into their expectations.  Yet, He came just the same.  To seek and to save.  To rescue and restore.  To heal and forgive. This is why we celebrate.  This is why we try to fill the season with awe and wonder and “magical” moments.  What our souls are really after is the supernatural reality of the coming of our Lord to live with us and meet us in our sin-sick state.  Not just to live alongside us, but to choose to die that we might be set free from the things that tangle and tie us up like long neglected strings of Christmas lights that are easier to throw away than unravel.  

The year is 2020 (now 2021).  This year is pivotal for our society collectively.  It has been hard.  It has been strange.  It has been unsettling and full of fear.  It has been discouraging.  It has been disappointing.  It has brought mourning and sorrow and changes we never thought possible.  So, as we sit on the cusp on the Advent season, there is a collective breath of hope.  There is a desperate need to believe that something about this season…anything…will make the year better, worth surviving.  We want something that will save this year from being a total disaster on every level. Even those who don’t realize it are longing for the real reason the Christmas season exists.  We are all longing for Jesus.  

Friend, there is good news.  He came. He dwelt.  And He still wants to dwell with us.  With you.  Emmanuel – God with us.  God with you.  Amid the ribbons and bows, trees decked out in all their festive glory a month before usual, gifts and giving, family, food, and friends…He is what we are really searching for.  He is the only thing that can fill our hearts with wonder and leave us standing in awe the way our inner man desires.  We know, in our souls, what we are looking for.  We just often miss the source in favor of the glitter and lights.  

The parallels are striking to me this year.  There is such a need for something to believe in.  Someone who won’t let you down.  Something you can count on.  Some way to make sense of the life we’ve been living this year (and every year).  This is how God’s people living in the first century felt.  Living under unfair and harsh rulers.  Praying for a promise to be fulfilled.  Seeing hardship after hardship.  Not hearing from God for 400 long years.  They were desperate for hope.  Hoping for joy.  Pleading for salvation from this life they didn’t understand and which was so hard to live.  And then came Jesus. And He changed everything.  

Will you take this Advent season to consider the wonder of Jesus…who He is…why He came…and why this miraculous, supernatural event should matter in your life?

This morning was a blue morning. Sadness crept around like dust bunny soldiers gathering in every corner and stealthily floating out to take over the mental flooring of my mind. It was like a hoarder who only has the smallest of trails from one place to another in the house remaining. The sadness closed everything but the trails.

Sadness was an army in miniature. Little soldiers isolating and surrounding every thought and feeling. They began to throw light on all the weight of all the things kept hoarded in my mental home, the emotions swept under rugs, the unsorted and unresolved stacking of life-thought and feeling, threatening to collapse and cut off all movement, intimidating me. I began to feel alone and powerless, disjointed, disconnected, and without purpose or value, adding to attack of the army of sorrow.

It seemed the battle was lost for a while. Self image was dying. Motivation to move forward was ebbing toward immobility, and strength to do anything was being drained. I was in retreat and on the edge of surrender. However . . . .

I was not being swallowed by a hoard of my own failings or being devastated by my own inability. I had turned my eyes to the world around me and entered my weakness and its. Light had grown dark in its presence. But I am not alone. 

The Spirit of God, given by grace, is not prone or subject to my weaknesses. He may reside in my life, but is not subject to my failings. He may wait on me, but He will not fail me. He stirred the resources, the battalions in readiness for such a time as this. In my surrender to Him, I had prepared as best I could, and had given Him authority to do what I could not.

Scriptures and promises began to take the field. Testimonies fired the big guns of promises already kept, fortifying the scriptures and promises to come. The cloud of witnesses the Lord had choreographed to surround my life began shouting praise and reminders of the Lordship of Jesus, raising standards and calling battle cries. My thoughts and feelings began to reconnect, and the soldiers of intimidation went from being on their guard, to backing up, to full retreat. 

There is peace and joy in the presence of the Lord. Separation from Him is the misery of life in its worst. Prayer, fellowship, scripture, and time with Jesus heals that sorrow and runs off the sadness in the life of this world. The Lord is deeper than my deepest fear and greater than my greatest enemy – even and especially when the worst is me. Jesus is Salvation.

Being overwhelmed is really scary. I remember being caught in a wave as a young boy. I was being tumbled, pushed, rolled and held under. I didn’t know which way was up or down, and I could not control my movement. The really frightening part was that I felt like I was running out of air, and I couldn’t get to the surface to get more. Recently I experienced an overwhelming life event.

I went to the home of a former student, a young person, who had suffered many severe, life-threatening illnesses during her life. Her husband and family were amazing throughout the battles she fought, in and out of the hospital. They truly expressed the love and hope and support you would hope to have if you were in a similar situation. The young woman herself was an amazing gift of caring, packaged in a small frame. She had been my friend since she entered my class as a high school student. Her family also became my friends through her. I arrived at her house shortly after she had died.

The dimensions and power of this event where overwhelming and years in the making. The cost of keeping her alive and giving her life was an expense paid in time, sacrifice, and unrestrained giving at every level. She left behind a husband and two children. All of the commitment, all of the love, all of the sacrifice, all the hopes and dreams, and life and death seemed to be tumbling like a giant wave, larger than any and all of us, carrying us along beyond any of our abilities to control it, grasp it, or reestablish any sense of normal. We were overwhelmed. Uncontrollable death had shattered the city of illusions we had built in our hearts and minds.

There was a thread within this physical, emotional, and psychological tsunami, God’s thread. God’s life and love is a thread which can not be severed by death or any other force. His presence only becomes stronger when we surrender the boundaries of physical life on this planet. The sad thing is that we often do not realize how strong and present He is, always and everywhere. We can see Jesus and His life in moments like life tsunamis because we are overwhelmed and have to surrender our ability to create order to His ability to rule over heaven and earth. We come to an end of ourselves and find that the thread of His love is more than enough to keep us tied to Him. The wave will pass over and around us, but His love will never fail and never be overcome.

The best in life is not waiting for the tsunami. The best is to grow in Jesus now, before being overwhelmed, allowing Him to build a protective cover around us with His thread, converting the threat of death to the promise of life. He transforms the giant suffering of this life into temporary discomfort which is experienced in the presence of His greater joy. Jesus is life, now and eternally. This world threw all the horrors humanity has to offer at Jesus. He was not overwhelmed or overcome. He paid for and gave us that gift – His victory. We are loved beyond our greatest understanding. Jesus is life.

Seek the Lord challenge

I am aware that I pray often. I pray big prayers, all or nothing prayers, radically change me and the world prayers. I am ambitious in my prayers, after all, I’m talking to God who can do anything. God is not a genie. I also pray small prayers, realistic prayers, and relationship prayers (the best ones because they concentrate on my relationship with the Lord).

However, in the midst of giant prayers, I occasionally become aware that I don’t really want what I’m asking God to give me. I couldn’t handle it if He gave it to me. I’m praying for millions when I can’t handle the modest budget I’ve been given to steward. God works far above and beyond my personal security limits. He is like a parent who knows the true cost and all the ancillary requirements the big prayers require. Ask for the millions because you can buy anything and don’t worry about all the problems and issues it will cause when you get it. Daydreams don’t cost anything, but life does.

I think the Lord hears the truth in my prayers. “Speak to me, but don’t scare me. Tell me stuff that isn’t threatening or that doesn’t require me to do something drastic. Show me stuff, but don’t show me what I’m really like because I couldn’t stand being that disgusted. God you are too big for me. I am terrified and talk to you like a terrified child who wants to pretend he is safe and okay.”

I’m not okay. The Lord is that big and scary. The Lord also knows how small I am and talks to me as a parent does to a small child who isn’t expected to understand the adult world except through time and teaching. His world is too big for me. I can only take small doses.

Jesus, who could have wiped our entire world clean of anything or everything with the snap of His fingers, (Thanos wouldn’t stand a chance against Him) chose to limit Himself for our sake to communicate with us at our level of understanding. 

The true power of Jesus isn’t what he did for us while walking the planet, but the limits He chose to impose upon Himself for our sake.  He translated heaven into human terms, which is still relevant today because of the spiritual truth He is still revealing behind the human face of history and life stories, in scripture, and so many other ways. 

Facing God is a terrible and a wonderful thing. Terrible because He really is that big, that powerful, that totally God. It is wonderful because He loves us enough to work with us where we are, constantly working to draw us into a better place.  His goal for us is always better than our own goal, goals for eternal well being, not just momentary comfort. He is totally trustworthy to deal with people who don’t really understand what it takes to fulfill their prayers or even grasp what they are requesting.. God may have to build a house before he can give someone a room of his own. Only He knows what it will take for each of us.

I’m reading Ezekiel 32 and realize that somehow I distance myself from the Old Testament image of God because of the seeming ruthless punishments He rains down on the disobedient. I disconnect because I don’t want to realize that I am like those people who deserved that. I am so alienated from those punishments to an extent that I can’t even realize that those people got less than they deserved.

How can I reconcile my images of God into one God. The God of the Old Testament (OT) is the God of the New Testament (NT). I have both softened Jesus and hardened God, seeing Jesus as the forgiver when He is also the judge. I see God in the OT as the punisher and not the forgiver He also is. I have separated them because I don’t know how to look at myself in the true scheme of things. My struggle with the image of God is the same as my struggle with my image of myself. I like to see myself as better than I am instead of seeing the truth of what I really am without Jesus.

The OT God is my God, worthy of respect and honor. He is the terrifying truth of what has happened to this world, what sin does, and what outcomes sin produces. He gave many chances, warnings, and opportunities. He rewarded the faithful and worked continuously to build relationship with His people and His individuals. He was a parent to a child who was young, completely immature, and chose rebellion over the parent.

The OT is raw and open and obvious. I can see with great clarity the rebellion of the people. I can see their hatefulness and abuse of God and what He has given them. But I can also see Him crying out to them for repentance so that He can heal them. I see the preachers and prophets laying down the obvious truth of the entire Bible – sin produces death and repentance opens the door to God for life and healing.

The OT is direct as a parent is to a new child. A new child has to know the difference between “no” and “yes.” The message has to be clear or the child will get injured or killed. “Don’t touch the stove,” has to be powerfully reinforced to a child who is only at the doorstep of understanding. “Don’t run out into the street,” has to be commanded with extreme prejudice to a child who has no comprehension of the danger of the mistake. The parent punishes out of the deep desire to protect and keep the child in safety, far from the harms, worse than the punishment, which might truly harm or kill their beautiful child.

The OT God is my God. I don’t understand Him. I fear Him because He commands respect. I know He must be the God I love because all the Old Testament was preparation so Jesus could come and complete the work. I learned the truth of the hot stove through the burns I received. I learn respect for God when I see the true dangers and devastation that sin causes and when I learn to recognize my own nature. Jesus only becomes real in the true context of what life on this planet is really about.

It takes time and training to learn. I learned as a child, but I learned more and better as I aged. How many severe/emphatic warnings does it take for a child to grow to the point of only needing to receive the warning in a word? The OT brought us from spiritual birth and the beginning of spiritual awareness to Jesus. Jesus now takes us the rest of the way. https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.13.11.ESV “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” 1 Corinthians 13:11 ESV

There are many Bible stories that are engaging, encouring, and, sometimes, downright cozy – but not Ezekiel 8. Ezekiel 8 is one of the tough love chapters for me. I need it, but I’m not quick to run to it. 

God is giving Ezekiel a vision of the truth behind the facade of his people. Each image is worse than the one before it, each revealing the truth of their inner life and reality. Ouch. God sees all. Humans seem to have a powerful commitment to image control, but God sees beyond all that into the absolute truth of our condition, beyond even the lies we tell ourselves. (Hard to think about because I’m so convincing. Ask me. I prefer to believe myself.)

One side of that coin is seeing ourselves and remembering ourselves in an unconverted self. I see and know how selfish and self absorbed I am and see that as the truth. That’s not exactly true either. The other side of the coin is that the Lord sees me through the eyes of His sacrifice for me. He views me through His salvation and mercy. I may be bad, but I’m loved, accepted, part of His family, and He continually works to heal and redeem me through His infinite love. 

Now that’s confusing. God can see all of me – the best and worse there is to see in me – and chooses love, compassion, and truth. The truth doesn’t go away. Real is real. I’m always in the need of repentence. It is just that the absolute truth is not the final word. Jesus is the final word. I have accepted Him and His redemption package and am spending the rest of my life opening it and having it therapeutically applied to my life through the unswerving work and faithfulness of the Holy Spirit. 

I know that I’m a people pleaser. I want people to like me. Sometimes I work hard at it because I’m convinced that, if they like me, I can find a reason to like myself. Then, there is Tona. We’ve been married over 45 years. She sees me, the real, the fake, the true. She sees the full mixture, my ability to do things beautifully in the Lord and my ability to be rotten to the core. (That’s a Crabby Appleton reference which only the oldest among you will get. Look up Tom Terrific.) Tona is a true example to me that “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

It seems that I stand in the middle of the conundrum. The truth of my nature and the forgiveness through which the Lord chooses to view me. The two are attached by the unbreakable bond of the love of Christ and His salvation. I know that I don’t understand this completely. I do believe that my back and forth motion between failing and Christ operates as the generator which powers my growth forward through the efforts of the Holy Spirit. 

Quite fankly, gratitude is a big part of the package for me. I look at myself, naked with apple in hand and the bite of it fresh on my lips. I look into the eyes of the Lord and His truth with forgiveness and mercy. I prefer Him. I am thankful for Him. 

This has been a season of many deaths. A former student called and weeped when his dad died. The mother of a former student contacted me because her daughter was dying and died just before I got there. One of the church fathers died, a man who created a sense of home wherever he was because of the love of God in him. There have been so many more – precious people loved by God – to join Him where their celebration can be unbounded by the limits of this world.

I realized that it is time for me to prepare for my own death as my mother had before she died. She planned everything, taking the burden and confusion from us, her children. I created a document, one that would cover everything necessary for my family to go forward.

Most of the work was straight forward: who gets what, who makes the decisions, where are the important records, how to pay the bills, what songs in the funeral, and the list goes on. That’s when I hit the snag. I have spent a lifetime loving my family and being loved by them. How can a practical list of what to do, when and how, ever address that? Not just my family, but all the others the Lord has put in my life.

I began to realize that my funeral plans were upside down. People come to celebrate the life of the one who has died. What about the guy, me, who has died. What if I want to say something to them? I want to reverse my funeral and make it about celebrating all the love God has poured out in my direction through all those amazing saints He brought into my life. I could never thank my family and these saints enough for being God’s emissaries.

There are Bible verses about abiding in the vine, established and firmly attached to Jesus. A vine gets its nutrients as long as it is attached, causing it to grow, stretch out, enjoy the sun and the rain, and live. No attachment means no nutrients, means death of the vine. 

So — how do the nutrients come to keep the vine alive? They come through all those wonderful people who are alive in Jesus. There is another verse about so great a cloud of witnesses. Jesus has filled my life through those beautiful people. Books of testimonies could be written, I could write, about what they have done – just for me, not including all the others they have touched. Now is a time of funeral. I want them to know how much they made a difference, how much of Jesus I saw because of their lives.

Now I hit the wall. As a man who has lived through the words I have, I have none. There is no adequate way to thank the people who God has blessed with His gifts and blessed me with their lives. I wish they could see themselves through my eyes, and they would never have a sad day again. They would see that Jesus has moved and is moving in and through them. They would not be disappointed in any of their failures because they would see that those failures became love and successes in the Lord’s hands. If there was any sorrow in them, it would be like I find now, not enough words to express the joy, the love, the thanksgiving I have for who the Lord is and who they are in the Lord.