The Wall

Ezekiel 42:20 NIV

So he measured the area on all four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to separate the holy from the common.

Can God Trust You At The Wall?

Years ago, when we were newlyweds, Mary Jo and I each were running to get into better shape. We

started with two miles and then three.  Eventually we were running four miles a day and we kept pushing ourselves further.  Mary Jo was actually in training, preparing to compete in the Crescent City Classic, a ten-kilometer race through New Orleans.  I did not plan on running in it but because of my pride, I did not want her outrunning me so each time she extended her runs, I did mine also.  We were running five miles, and then we were at six miles, four times a week.  Finally we were running seven miles together and then the week before the race, we ran a full ten miles.  Because the Crescent City Classic is only 6.2 miles, we both felt confident we could do well in the race.  There was only one problem.  I did not want to run in it.  Although Mary Jo kept urging me to enter, I told her I wouldn’t.   I did all the training for the race but I refused to run when it was time.  I cannot say why I wouldn’t compete.  I might have been afraid I wouldn’t do well.  It could have been that I was concerned that Mary Jo might beat me.  It’s not that I did not like to run or wasn’t prepared for the race.  For some reason, there was a wall that kept me from running in it; a wall I refused to climb.

When you or I come up against a wall, we have to decide what to do about it.  Perhaps the answer is easy; we have no interest in what is behind the wall.  It might be though that the wall seems insurmountable and although we would like to get beyond it, we give up because we are afraid to try to scale it.  We aren’t after all Spiderman; we don’t have super powers.  There are walls that seem to be morally wrong to climb.  It is against the law.  To climb the wall would require we do something that violates our values.  Maybe you aren’t sure that it is worth the effort trying to get past the wall.  Perhaps there is a wall before you right now and you haven’t decided what to do about it.  Will you pretend that you just don’t see it, will you ignore it or will you gather up all your power and try to scale it?    Will you turn away from it?  Will you consult with others who have faced similar walls and find out what they did?  Are you the only one in this world who knows about the wall you have before you?

Consider the possibility that there might be a wall you face and God is watching carefully to see what you will do about it.  He might in fact have placed that wall before you to test you, to try your resolve, reveal your character.  When the nation of Israel began its journey into the new land God had picked out for her to settle and make her home, a wall stood before the people.  For forty years the Israelites had wandered about in the desert just outside Palestine as punishment for refusing to believe God would enable them to conquer the people living in the land God wanted them to settle.  Fear kept that entire generation of Israelites out of the land that they comfortably could have inhabited.  Now, forty years later, the people had a far more difficult challenge before them if they were to live in the Promised Land.  They had to attack a walled city and bring it down.  It was a city fortress.  Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. (Joshua 6:1 NIV) God did have a plan for how they were to attack the city.  It certainly was not a commonly practiced military strategy though.   March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.  Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.  When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in."  (Joshua  6:3-5 NIV)

Imagine standing before the city of Jericho and staring up at that wall with those orders to follow.  Would you have taken them seriously?   Would you have followed them or come up with another plan?  Consider this possibility; that every wall that is set before you God has a specific way of addressing it.  There are not two ways; there is not an alternative plan He has in mind.  Only one solution is acceptable to Him, only one method for dealing with it.  What if you know what He wants done and you must decide if you will trust Him in it?  Will you let Him be in charge?  Consider this possibility.  Not only Is God wanting you to trust Him with regard to the wall, He has trusted you to follow His instructions.  Is God making a good decision?  Should He trust you?  Can the Lord count on you to follow His instructions, to do things the way He wants them done?  Will you embarrass Him by the way you deal with the wall you face?

Nehemiah is often referred to as, “The Wall Builder”.  Jerusalem had for three generations remained in ruins.  A few homes had been rebuilt, some gardens started, commerce reestablished.  But its wall remained a wreck.  As long as this was the case, the few settlers in the city were in danger of being killed or enslaved by any marauding band of soldiers passing through the territory.  Nehemiah was a high ranking official in the Persian court, the cupbearer to the king.  One day his brother came to town and informed Nehemiah what he discovered when he visited Jerusalem.  Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.   They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."  (Nehemiah 1:2-3 NIV)  At this point, as Nehemiah heard the news of the condition of the chief city of his ancestors, he had to process carefully what this meant for him.  The wall required someone with leadership skills to lead the rebuilding effort.  It would be a monumental task.  Nehemiah really did not  yet even know how great an effort it would take to get it done.  He did however realize that for more than seventy years nothing had been done about the demolished wall and for good reason.  No one thought the wall could be rebuilt.

Consider carefully this possibility.  The reason Nehemiah found out about how bad the situation in Jerusalem was and the condition of the wall is because the Lord gave him that information.  It was God who put together his brother’s trip to Jerusalem and his eyewitness account to Nehemiah of what he saw.  If that is the case and the Biblical view of life is that God is in charge of it all, what we see and what we hear and what we face, then, it was the Lord who gave him that information about the wall.  Now why would the Lord do that?  Why would he give Nehemiah this report of the terrible need for help in Jerusalem?  Perhaps the wall was Nehemiah’s responsibility to fix.  Maybe God was assigning this task to him.  That is why He told Nehemiah about it.  That is why he gave Nehemiah the career he had, gave him his friendship with the king of Persia.  Is it possible that the wall “had Nehemiah’s name on it”?  Nehemiah seemed to think so.  Why else did he ask the king for permission to go to Jerusalem and work on it.  The king said to me, "What is it you want?"  Then I prayed to the God of heaven,  and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it." (Nehemiah 2:4-5 NIV)

When Nehemiah got to Jerusalem he discovered that conditions were even worse than he imagined.  The people were disorganized and discouraged.   Threats were made against his life by leaders of neighboring countries who did not want the wall rebuilt.  God gave Nehemiah a wall to build but he did not make it easy for him.  In fact it was a foolish and terrifying proposition to try and rebuild the wall.  God left this wall in Nehemiah’s hands.  It was up to Nehemiah to take up the project of rebuilding the wall.  He trusted Nehemiah to make the right decision.  What if God has a wall for you to build?  What if it is too hard for you to build?  It is too much work?  It is not something anyone else thinks you should do.  Will you do it anyway?  Will you build that wall?  What if God is waiting for you to do it?  What if He trusts you with this wall?  Will you prove Him right to believe in you?    You cannot say you do not know about the wall.  He has already laid out all the facts.  What will you do about it?

It is surprising when you give it much thought how many of God’s prophets faced terrible circumstances.  Many were put in nearly impossible circumstances that that would have pushed most of us to quit.  Why tell people what God has said when no one wants to listen?  Why put yourself in danger when it seems pointless?  Why keep preaching when if feels hopeless.  The prophet Habakkuk stood on the wall of Jerusalem and saw nothing but darkness.  The Babylonians were going to come and conquer Judah.  It was impossible to stop them.  Disaster loomed and Habakkuk had no inspiring revelation from God that all would work out if he just did not lose hope.  The last words of the book he wrote are some of the most elevating found in Scripture though.  They state the sort of determination that heroes in movies and great works of literature make, that Ivanhoe or Aragorn or Captain America or Wonder Woman or the Black Panther would make.  No matter what may happen, no matter how bad it gets, I will not yield.  I will not quit.  God trusted Habakkuk to not surrender to fear, to not give in to despair.  He trusted Habakkuk with the great message of trouble.  Habakkuk made one of the most inspiring declarations found anywhere in Scripture and we must carefully let it sink in to us.  I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.  Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.  Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. (Habakkuk 3:16-19 NIV)

The Lord trusted Habakkuk at the wall.  God let him see what really was going to happen, gave him the complete picture and believed his friend could handle it.  He told Habakkuk that trouble was coming, trouble that would shatter the faith of many and he watched to see how Habakkuk took it.  What if you heard that your life was going to be tough, that it would be hard what you face?  Would you stand with your eyes staring into the storm and trust Christ then?  Would you courageously believe that God will be with you and see you through the hurricane that is on the horizon?  Will you trust the Lord not just when it is sunny and clear but also when the lightning flashes and the thunder billows and the wind threatens your home?  Can God trust you at the wall?  Are you the one who has the courage to stand when others run away and hide?  Do you truly believe in Christ your Savior?  Your time will come when the evidence seems to indicate that God does not love you, that He has forgotten you and that you are alone in this.  Yet the evidence will be wrong and those who will tell you to give up on your God and your faith in Him will be wrong.  You alone will be able to quiet the critics and the noise of despair by declaring with Habakkuk.  “I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”  Decide now.  At the foot of the wall, make your declaration. “The Sovereign Lord is my strength!”  God will see you through the storm and you will be victorious.  The future is on your side!

Solitude

Exodus 33:8-9 NIV

And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent.  As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses.

What Do You Think God Wants To Do With You?

A few weeks ago, it didn’t go well for me substitute teaching.  The class had acted pretty badly and I struggled to maintain control over the group.  They kept speaking when I told them to be quiet, I had trouble explaining the material I was assigned to cover and several of the kids were disrespectful.  I felt overmatched and inadequate.  Limping to my car, I asked God what was wrong with me.  Everything about my life felt out of sorts and in disarray.  I opened the door and plopped down in my seat, glad to have a few minutes of solitude.  I sat before God in the sanctuary of my little Honda and silently gave Him time to work in me.

Probably you too have needed time alone and it was a welcome relief to find a spot where you could regroup.  Perhaps you have felt psychologically drained and wanted to get away where no one could interrupt your thoughts or agitate you.  Sometimes you have to retreat to the bathroom to find solitude.  Maybe it is your car or your office or a park bench where you gather yourself. Many retreat to their bedrooms.  You might sit in front of your computer without noticing anything that’s there, lost in your thoughts.  Do you need time alone on a regular basis?  What does solitude do for you?  Have you found it helpful?

The Bible makes it clear that we are never alone, even when we are in the loneliest of places.  The book of Hebrews even insists that we are surrounded “by a great cloud of witnesses.”  Yet, due to our lack of awareness of everything supernatural happening all around us, we ignore both angels and demons.  When we are by ourselves with no physical beings nearby, we feel alone and quite honestly are often quite grateful for those moments.  However, our difficulty perceiving the presence of God does not mean He is absent.  The Lord promises He is with you at every moment and solitude is not what is commonly thought.  If you realize that solitude is always you with God and never you just by yourself, a great benefit to your life is possible.

The Gospel of Luke begins with an interesting story that is only told by Luke.  There was a couple that was old and childless and the husband was one of many Jewish priests.  Zechariah was chosen by lot to go into the temple and burn the incense in the sanctuary.  Once when Zechariah's division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.  And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. (Luke 1: 8-10 NIV)  Zechariah found himself alone in the inner sanctum of the Temple but what he soon discovered was that his solitude was not what it seemed.  An angel suddenly appeared in the room.  When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. (Luke 1:12 NIV)  After the angel reassured him that he was not in danger, the messenger from God gave him the joyous news that Zechariah and his wife were going to conceive and have a baby.  The angel made it clear that this was an answer to their prayers.  But this declaration was too stupendous for Zechariah to believe, even if it did come directly from an angel!  Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years." (Luke 1:18 NIV)

After all these years of praying, Zechariah had become hopeless.  He no longer believed it was possible that he and his wife could have a child. Yet here was the revelation, coming to him in the solitary place where Zechariah thought he was all alone.  We see this same formula again and again in Scripture.  God lets someone become alone and then He shifts that person’s life.  When the Lord wanted to adjust the prophet Ezekiel’s thinking, He pulled him aside.  Ezekiel describes this in the book he wrote.  The hand of the Lord was upon me there, and he said to me, "Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you." (Ezekiel 3:22 NIV)  How did God say this to Ezekiel?  Was it in an audible voice that anyone could have heard or did God speak directly into the prophet’s head?  We don’t know but what is clear is that the Lord sent Ezekiel off by himself to receive the revelation.  This is the normal process.  God waits until someone is alone…or thinks he or she is alone…and then He does something new with that person.

Consider the example of Isaiah.  The Lord got him alone in the Temple and there revealed Himself to the prophet.  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. (Isaiah 6:1 NIV)  If God’s presence was not enough, there were flying seraphs and shaking door posts and thresholds and the whole building filled with smoke.  Clearly Isaiah was not alone and the Lord made that clear in a magnificent way.  Immediately, with all the pageantry, what struck Isaiah most was his sinfulness.  He let out a wail!  "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5 NIV)  When God meets you in the solitude, you must first face your Sin.  It becomes clear as day when you are alone with the Lord that you sin and sin badly.  You cannot go any further with the Lord unless you grasp the awful nature of your sin and solitude magnifies it so that you see your sin clearly when you become alone.  If you have not seen your sin and grown to hate it, you most likely have never been alone with God.  The Lord forces you to face your sin.  His very presence does that to you.

If you are alone with God, there are two revelations that will come to you and they will carry the force of a great hurricane.  You are sinful and only God can take away your sin.  Whatever was wrong with Isaiah, whatever evil he saw in himself, it had to do with his mouth!  Jesus said that it is not what goes into you that is bad, it is what comes out of you that matters and clearly something was coming out of Isaiah that was ugly and it had to do with his mouth.  Immediately when Isaiah realized just how wicked he was the Lord provided him with a live coal that took away the guilt of his sin.  Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.  With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."  (Isaiah 6:6-7 NIV)

If there is a single lesson to learn from this passage, perhaps what rises above all is that only God can take away our guilt.  God does the work.  Here He touches the lips with the purifying live coal.  This was just a temporary solution for only in the Cross is the guilt of our Sin removed altogether.  When Christ came and became a part of us, He did so to deal once and for all time with our Sin.  You cannot be alone with God and fail to realize your complete dependence upon Him.  In a crowd you can feel secure and confident that you make it on your own.  Alone with God though you know that is a fairy tale, it is like thinking your heart is unnecessary or your brain does not matter.  Dependence upon God and reliance upon Him to save you is the clearest sign you have been alone with Him.  What is so striking about the Psalms is that this is what you see in them at every turn.  You are dependent upon God to save you and there is no greater determination you can make than to rely upon Him in everything you do.

Nearly always when there is a break in your relationship with God, it is because there is a moral barrier that stands in your way.  God would not let Isaiah go any further with Him until his mouth issues were addressed.  Sometimes it is sexual immorality, other times a bad temper or the unwillingness to forgive.  It might be cruelty that you possess or selfishness and greed or the hard headed unwillingness to do what God has said to do.  This barrier, whatever it might be must be taken apart if you are to ever go any further with God.  It is when you are alone with Him that this is done.  God penetrates your heart and works out of you what sin has worked into you.  As you stay with Christ, alone just the two of you, a miracle occurs.  The love of God starts to become your love, the peace of God becomes your peace and the joy that God has becomes your joy.  You cannot generate this within yourself.  Only Christ can do it.  Alone with God, no conversation, no distracting phones or computers, just your mind and the Lord’s mind coming together and in the miracle of Christ, you become transformed.  God will want to make you alone with Him to cleanse your actions and He will want to work out of you your sinful habits. In solitude you will be made good, and clean and like God.  In God’s grip, alone with Him in a quiet place where He can get through to you, nothing will matter that mattered so much to you before; not your accomplishments, not your gifts, not what you want to make of your life.   What will rise above everything else as you stay with Him will be His love becoming yours as you remain alone with Him wherever and whenever the Lord calls you to come to Him.  Why not take a solitude break this week?  Be alone with God for whatever time you can give Him.

The Fullness of You... Tasting God

Psalm 34:8 NIV

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

How Does God Taste To You?

There are five different forms of taste.  The first is the ability to taste sweets and is associated with identifying simple carbohydrates.  The second is a recently discovered taste sense called Umami and is connected to savory foods produced by amino acids and small peptides.  Tomatoes, soy sauce, meat broths and fermented products are recognized by this taste type.  The salty taste receptors pick up on sodium and other ions.  Taste buds connected with sour notice acids and bitter taste receptors cue us in on potential toxins such as those in plant alkaloids.  How important do you think the ability to taste is?  Is its greatest benefit the pleasure it brings or its ability to help protect you from foods and drinks you should not be taking into your body?  Taste even helps you digest your food properly as it prepares the body to receive what you put into it. There is research that indicates that those who lose the ability to taste are less likely to eat and more likely to suffer from malnutrition.  Medications that have the side effect of taking away some of your ability to taste may also limit your recovery by diminishing the desire you have to fuel the body.  Have you ever thought of “taste” as important when it comes to your relationship to God?  It is and we will take a look at this today.

Perhaps the most famous verse found in the Bible on taste is Psalm 34: 8.  Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. (NIV)  It is odd to think of tasting the goodness of the Lord.  What does that mean?  Quoting this verse, the Apostle Peter notes the great value of living a holy and good life.  Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.  Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2:1-2 NIV)  If you accept these two verses as indications that taste is somehow related to our experience of God, then perhaps you could spend a bit of time considering how that is so.

There are at least three different ways taste impacts us.  The first is that it allows us to evaluate what we take into ourselves before we do so.  There are questions we may have with regard to God.  Is He good enough?  Can I count on Him?  Do I matter to Him?  How will He change my life if I invite Him to be a part of it?  The Hebrew people had questions like this when Moses came to them with a stunning proposition.  He told them that God had met him in the desert and the Lord was going to take the entire nation of Israel out of its Egyptian captivity.  At first the leaders were happy to hear of this; especially when Moses performed miracles that the Lord enabled.  And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped. (Exodus 4:31 NIV)  Encouraged by the response of the Israelites Moses and his brother Aaron immediately left to meet with the king.  Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.'" (Exodus 5:1 NIV) Unfortunately, the King of Egypt was not too receptive to Moses’s presentation and did not care what Moses’s God had to say.  He made it worse on the Israelites after Moses made his request or demand.   That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and foremen in charge of the people:  "You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw.  But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don't reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.'  Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies." (Exodus 5:6-9 NIV)

The Israelites weren’t anti-God after their lives were made more miserable; they just were not ready to trust Him to get them out of Egypt.  They had a taste of God and He left a bitter taste in their mouths.  After the Lord sent the ten plagues however, He tasted much sweeter and they found Him worth following.  What do we do though if we cannot see anything supernatural in our lives yet?  How does God taste when we are struggling with depression or difficult circumstances?  Sometimes we take too small of a sample and don’t give God enough time to reveal His kindness and mercy.  A second taste of God could make things much clearer for us.

Taste can also tell you what your body needs.  Pregnant women are known for having strange cravings and many believe that the taste for certain foods is a way the body tells them of their nutritional needs.  Athletes have reported the same discovery.  When you taste of the Lord you might discover that what you thought was important to you isn’t or might even be harmful.  In speaking of the Israelites and their reaction to being in the desert, the Psalmist had this to say about them after they had been freed of their slavery and their enemies destroyed.  He (the Lord) saved them from the hand of the foe; from the hand of the enemy he redeemed them. The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived. Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.  But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his counsel.  In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wasteland they put God to the test. (Psalm 106:10-14 NIV)

How many in the church mistake their cravings for their needs?  It is the great trap of Satan to confuse our minds and create within us disappointment with God because He won’t give in to our cravings when they don’t meet our needs.  Our Lord’s work with us is defined and unyielding.  He is making us fit for heaven.  If you are God’s and you belong to Him through our Lord’s work on the Cross, then He will not budge on this.  God will give you enough people who don’t like you, who treat you badly, to work in you love for enemies.  He will give you enough hardship and difficulty until you are grateful for the smallest blessing and satisfied with the most insignificant of gifts.  Trials will come from God that will challenge your faith so that you learn to trust Him uncompromisingly.  The Holy Spirit will take your childish lust for entertainment and bore you to tears with what once garnered your rapt attention.  Just look at your circumstances carefully and you will quickly discover what God thinks you need to be prepared for heaven.  As long as our joy is based on what we have rather than being connected to Christ in trust and love, our Lord will eliminate our sources of happiness that don’t lead us to Him or that make us selfish or self-absorbed.

If that sounds discouraging to you, then consider one more benefit of taste.  Taste can create an insatiable desire for more.  How many of us have kept eating because of the taste of our food rather than our need for it!  This may lead to unhealthy weight gain but spiritually this is a gift we must treasure.  The Psalmist describes this aspect of taste perfectly.  As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Psalm 42:1-2 NIV)  How often do we find Christians in this state?  It comes only through the supernatural working of God!  There are moments when our interest in Christ becomes like an explosion of light.  We are mesmerized by Him; captivated by Him.  There is an example of this that illustrates the progression of desire for God.  In Acts 5 is the account of the arrest of the Apostles by the Jewish authorities for preaching Christ at the Temple.  When commanded by the Sanhedrin to stop teaching publically about Christ, Peter spoke for all of the Apostles, responding, "We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29 NIV)  In simple obedience the Apostles refused to back down to the threats of the Sanhedrin.  But then they were flogged which was a horrific beating, a brutally sadistic beating and afterward we are told the Apostles rejoiced.  They were genuinely happy.  How could this have been?  During that space in time, their soul panted for God and nothing could keep them from that rapt attention to Him.

In moments that are so private and unpretentious we may not believe they have occurred, God comes to us in the midst of some ordinary, mundane and even boring time when we have perhaps decided Christianity is as dull as a pile of gravel.  The Lord will catch you up in His arms and you will be enveloped by the goodness of God and His love for you.  He will flood your mind and you will be brought to a state of joy that Satan is unable to mimic.  You cannot and will never plan these moments with God.  All you can do is keep your heart so ready and so pure that when He comes upon you, nothing will hinder the supernatural pleasure you will have being with Him.  Taste and see that the Lord is good…

Unharried

The average modern Christian lives chaotically.  She goes from one activity to another, accomplishing countless chores and feeling the weight of ten thousand demands without a shred of the peace and contentment Jesus possessed as He went about His Father's business.  Jesus did not separate what He did from what His Father was doing through Him.  The reason is that He refused to disengage Himself from the Father relationally or psychologically.  It was not theological fluff when Christ said that He and the Father were one.  Our Lord worked at this oneness and developed it so that it was habitual.  His times on the mountain established the oneness but so did His turning inward to the Father as He ate, talked with the disciples and the Pharisees, sat on the well in a Samaritan village and strolled along the edge of the lake.  He kept His mind aligned with the Father wherever He was and refused to let the lusts of the world disrupt that connection.  There are two temptations of Satan that knock us off our block.  We want what isn't ours and we don't want what God bestows.  The struggle in our head is a violent one.  Do we believe that our Lord loves us absolutely and that His will for us is perfect and good?  When we question those two axioms of scripture we lose our bearing with God and strike out on our own.  At that point we begin to operate as the Israelites in the time of the Judges, "everyone did as he saw fit."  If you want the peace that "passes understanding", then you must doggedly remain aligned with the same God who provides that peace.  Stay attached to the Lord at every level and at all costs.  Habitually thank the Lord for what you have and what you encounter at the moment, whether it seems good or bad to you.  The gratitude of the saint is her greatest defense against depression, anxiety and conflict.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.     Colossians 3:15 NIV

Distancing Yourself From Sodom

Don't think it is so odd that Lot hesitated before leaving

Sodom.  It is the most human of all tendencies; to flinch at the moment God starts to move in a life.  He reveals a sin, directs a move, makes a determination and we pause in our acceptance of it.  The nature of man must be conquered in this spot; our wincing doubt.  Nothing gets done in us without faith in God.  We can believe a billion things about ourselves and others but until we have grown to trust God in the smallest part, we have gotten nowhere.  Abraham believed God which is why he never had a Sodom to abandon.  He waited for the Lord to guide him where to go and believed God would.  There is nothing complex about living in Christ.  Faith in Him is at the heart of the relationship...not personal holiness, not sacrificial giving, not even generous love and affection.  Everything else comes around as we take faith in God at the tiniest point and move forward from there.  Faith the size of a mustard seed moves mountains!  Imagine what might come of faith a bit larger than that?  Christ cannot be followed until He is trusted.

In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. Psalm 22:4 NIV