Month: May 2010

More Than We Can Imagine

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A trampoline is a load of fun. Of course I am talking about the big trampolines with protective netting around the sides. It would be an understatement to say that I jumped quite vigorously in one with my nephews yesterday.

Does projecting yourself vertically many feet into the air and landing in an “Indian style” sitting position, only to shoot right back up on both feet in the same bounce sound like vigorous trampoline work? Well, repeat that motion time and time again without stop. Then, add two little boys to the situation who ask you constantly to “bounce them higher” by forcing yourself to jump higher and harder. This is the stuff of trampoline heaven.

During one of my stints on that trampoline yesterday, I remember a distinct thought as my body rose into the air, enabling me to nearly brush the leaves of the surrounding trees. It was a beautiful day, and the feeling of nearly flying beneath the sunshine brought to mind a point from Ephesians 3:20 (NIV): God’s ability to do immeasurably more than all we can imagine – according to His power working in us.

As a type 1 diabetic of 26 years, I am thankful to Jesus for His sustaining, healing power in my body. By His grace, I have been active and have exercised most of my life. And, although I will suffer great soreness after being on that trampoline, I was exhilarated by the feeling of every part of my body – every muscle – being used to propel me up and all about. It felt like freedom. You cannot help but laugh while you are jumping like that, and you cannot help but feel like you are young all over again – like you have the world by the tail.

God reminded me while bouncing in that silly trampoline that we do have the world by the tail! We are free.

I want God to use every part of my life for His glory. I want to be totally spent for Him. How good it felt to have every muscle and joint used to “fly” yesterday. How good it feels to have every thought of our mind, every emotion of our heart, and every movement of our body used up by God; that is freedom.

It is hard for me to imagine that I can jump like I did. I know that someday soon I won’t be able to in the same way.

Sometimes it is also difficult for us to imagine that God could move through us mightily. But here is the key: God is able to do immeasurably more than what we can even imagine!

So get on the trampoline of life and let God use every part of you, while we wait for the day our resurrected bodies will literally jump again too!

Healed Bruises

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Bruises hurt. The soreness of a significant bruise on my right wrist may cause me to be very careful about using my arm for a few days. I may become apt to slow down, be too cautious, and miss out on activity because of the tenderness.

The Bible tells us that Jesus came “to set at liberty them that are bruised.” (Luke 4:18b, KJV) We humans get bruised spiritually in this life. While physical bruises are ruptured blood vessels resulting in pain that can cause hesitation, spiritual bruises are hearts broken by sin’s effects. These bruises of the heart can stultify our emotional lives and compel debilitating cautiousness.

Whether we read in the King James Version of the freedom bruised ones receive, or we read in the New International Version of the release of the oppressed; the Greek word implies that we are broken, shattered, and blown to pieces in a spiritual sense.

Jesus came to free us from the effects of sin’s bruising. Do you feel stifled by the guilt of your past? Are you hesitant to enter into God’s plan for your life because of sin’s effects? There is no bruising effect from which Jesus cannot set us free!

Some spiritual bruising is the result of our own rebellion against God’s righteousness. Some bruising comes because we suffer under the general effects of sin: broken relationships, illness and disease, disabilities, economic hardship, emotional weaknesses passed down through generations, and dozens of other agonies.

Know this: “Jesus came to set at liberty them that are bruised.” His shed blood and resurrection from death provide the healing for our bruises.

Please do not allow the enemy to steal from you the glory of moving forward each day in God’s plan without hesitation.

Our past sin will not stifle us.
Our former failures cannot make us stagger.
Our undeserved heartache will not command dawdling.
Our suffering bodies will not make us tentative.

We are resolute and ready to pursue every dream and purpose God has for us. Why? Because Jesus has set us free from life’s bruising effects!

Shark Bites Or Dog Bites?

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Shark bites or dog bites? Burglaries or identity theft? Americans killed by terrorists or Americans who die from seasonal flu?

As Newsweek reports in its “Back Story” of the May 24 & 31, 2010 issue, “. . . much of what we worry about today is based on hype rather than reality.”

The same Newsweek edition notes that while 28 Americans suffered shark attacks last year, 4.5 million suffered dog bites!

2.2 million burglaries occurred in 2007, while 8.3 million people had their identity stolen in 2005!

In 2008, 33 Americans were killed by terrorist attacks around the world, while 36,171 died from seasonal flu!

Perhaps our concerns in this world are often misplaced; so, too, in the realm of the spiritual.

The statistics above demonstrate that we often dread extraordinary things while the ordinary destroys and kills. We become accustomed to exalting hype. We forget to pay attention to the seemingly mundane . . . until the seemingly mundane proves its exceptional nature by actually giving us something with which we must reckon. We may fear a terrorist while the flu kills us.

Speaking of fear, I am quite concerned that we Christians have misplaced apprehension. We are so busy worrying we might not have or accomplish what culture expects of us; all the while, we are losing the battle with the powers of darkness. For the Christian, the real and daily battle is in the world of the spirit.

We all know Ephesians 6:12: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” But do we realize that while we are busy worrying about how our houses and cars compare to the neighbors’ possessions, demons of hell are tearing our souls apart at the core because we don’t perceive the danger of refusing to pray incessantly?

Do we shun the social stigma of not keeping up with the latest prime time television shows more than we care about the dark authorities and powers who have made it their aim to destroy our wholehearted devotion to Jesus and our determination to study His Word?

While most fear cultural hype, we ought to have a healthy respect for the spiritual battle taking place each moment that we live!

Only a fool would fear shark bites more than dog bites as he walks through his neighborhood each day.

And only foolish Christians would fear the death of worldly aspirations more than the death of our faith.

God, please help us discern the real battle.

Is That Hole Really A Portal?

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When disappointed to see a hole six inches in diameter near the top of a thick, evergreen bush of ours; I assumed the obvious defect was the result of the severe winter’s huge icicles. I had knocked from my roof numerous icicles measured better in feet than inches. As soon as the beautiful spring weather made obvious the unnatural cavity near the top of our bush, I became annoyed at the disfigurement. “What needless damage,” I thought, as my mathematical mind longed for symmetry and completion.

Just a few days later, my husband – knowing how I love birds – excitedly asked me if I had seen the baby robins yet. “Where?” I asked. You can guess his answer . . . “In the bush under the kitchen window.” I rushed with my little nephews to see the oddly cute baby birds. How precious they were tucked away in the six-inch recess of our otherwise perfect bush. What a secure nest in which they rested, safely on the inner branches of the evergreen.

So, after all, the annoying hole in my bush is not just a hole, it is a portal . . . to new life. The dark cavity I thought a result of the random damage of winter months was a truly purposeful haven where life could begin.

And so it is with our God of creation. He shows us that holes can be portals. He shows us that seemingly bad or needless things can – in all reality – be entrances to life.

Romans 5:3-4 says, “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” (NIV)

I can no more definitively explain how suffering results in hope than I can explain how robins construct sturdy nests with little beaks, or how God brings tiny birds out of eggs and makes them grow.

But I know this, for people redeemed by God through Jesus, behind every dark recess there is the victory of life. For the Christian, every abyss of suffering is truly a portal to perseverance, character, and – ultimately – hope. I have known no suffering not accompanied by the need to persevere; I have known no trial that could not result in increased character, and I have known no heartache that the hope of Jesus could not soothe.

Our suffering is not an inconvenient hole in the otherwise orderliness of life; it is a portal to hope when viewed through the perspective of God.

And, even now as I write this devotion, the baby robins chirp, “Amen!”

Of Fountains and Vacuums

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When we turn away from God, we are not simply turning to something “not quite as good” as God; we are veering toward a veritable vacuum. When we choose to disregard God, we actually descend into a vortex that sucks the vitality of life from the core of us.

Our Creator spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (2:13, NASB)

Evil number one: people turn from God, who is – metaphorically – the Fountain (or Spring) of Living Water. As earthly springs provide a fresh flow of natural water, so God is the source of real life and joy. Spring water is not produced through our efforts, but rather enjoyed when we come near and drink. The supply is endless; it just keeps coming, and we drink happily though we’ve not had one bit to do with the water’s production. The refreshment is ours; the production is His.

What utter shame it is that we would walk away from the source of all life and joy. It is more than a shame; it is sheer evil to forsake the One who provides.

Evil number two: people turn to man-made cisterns – broken cisterns – that can hold no water. Make no mistake; when we abandon the Fountain of Life, there is no hope of gathering life in containers of our making. Whatever containers we fashion to feebly attempt to hold joy – riches, successes, relationships, fit bodies, etc. – they simply cannot hold life. As with broken cisterns, real joy leaks out – sometimes oozing, sometimes gushing.

Living for God and living for something else are not opposites. Living for something other than God is the absence of genuine life. As broken containers leak water, so people turned away from God leak the essence of life.

God is the Fountain, the Giver of all good things. All else is a broken cistern, sucking from our soul true vitality.

What is evil? To turn from the Source of Life and turn to a vacuum, thinking we have somehow done better for ourselves. Come back to God.

A Hymn to God the Father – by John Donne (1572-1631)

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Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,

    Which is my sin, though it were done before?

Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,

    And do run still: though still I do deplore?

When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

    For I have more.


Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won

    Others to sin? And, made my sin their door?

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun

    A year, or two, but wallowed in a score?

When thou hast done, thou hast not done,

    For I have more.


I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by thy self, that at my death thy son

    Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;

And having done that, thou hast done,

    I fear no more.

He Will Get Us There!

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Do you wonder how you’ll get to where you need to go? Do you doubt that you’ll make it to the destination God has for you? If you’re thinking destination with a capital “D” – Heaven – let’s add to that the myriad, smaller harbors along the way as we traverse this life. How will we make it?

We must embrace the exciting truth of one of the most overlooked, under-appreciated verses in the Bible, John 6:21.

Here, John relates to us the power of Jesus to manipulate the very fabric of space and time for the safe transportation of His followers to their destination! Unbelievable, science fiction-like action is displayed here. But this is not fiction. This is the Maker of reality manipulating reality under the feet of His followers!

After Jesus walked on water to get to His disciples’ boat out on that old sea, our Savior was finally invited into the vessel. He had to convince His friends that He was not a ghost, as His supernatural power overwhelmed them.

Although Matthew and Mark focus more on the water-walking, John zooms in precisely on the next miracle: So they were willing to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

Astounding! That boat was transported supernaturally to the shore. Overpowering space and time, Jesus carried the vessel of His feeble-minded followers! In an instant – without added effort and rowing – there they were, at the other side!

Why did Jesus manipulate the fabric of the created universe that day? Of the infinite number of reasons God may have, we can be sure one is for our current comfort. We need tangible examples of God’s control of circumstance on our behalf.

Who knows how Jesus will transport us to tomorrow, or past this difficult trial, or over this heart-wrenching disappointment, or to the future years of our life, or through the tumultuous times of our culture, or over the anxiety that would destroy us?

But He can. And He will . . . if we will let Him into our boat.