Category: Resurrection

Categories
Courage Cross Endurance Faith Perspective Regret Resurrection

Unlikely Candidates

When I held my firstborn for the first time, I was overwhelmed. I was afraid to lift him for fear of doing something wrong but after the nurse deposited him in my room she was gone and he began to cry. What else to do? I lifted him into my arms and began to learn how to comfort a crying baby, it had to be done.

Things changed quickly that day; before having children I really didn’t know what it meant to take charge and do what was needed at any given moment. When diapers needed changing, baths needed taking, and crying needed soothing, I was there and did what I had to do. In the years that followed I had 3 more children and each time the ability to do what had to be done was there. It didn’t matter how messy or how late I had to stay up, I just did it because it had to be done.

All these years later as my youngest is now 11 and has outgrown many of those younger-years issues, I am still amazed at what I was able to do, for in reality I am far from brave or strong.

I wonder about Simon of Cyrene who was compelled to carry the cross for Jesus. He was a family man, a father of 2 young sons (Mark 15:21) on a journey but was caught in the middle of the mess in Jerusalem at the crucifixion of Jesus.

Luke 23:26 NASB “When they led Him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, coming in from the country, and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.”

Under the circumstances, Simon did what he had to do. I imagine in retrospect, when he learned of the resurrection of Jesus, his feelings of being chosen to carry the cross were much different than they were when he had the cross placed on him in the first place. Like many of us when we face the unexpected, he may have thought it unfair that he had to bear the burden, he was only on a trip, this wasn’t part of the plan!

Relationships, jobs, volunteering, ministry, and just about everything we do in life will be full of unexpected, unfair, and seemingly impossible complications that will arise and need tending to. Many times, at this juncture, unlike Simon of Cyrene who had no choice but to take the cross as he was forced to, we choose to back away from the challenge because it wasn’t part of the original plan. How much have we deprived ourselves from? Could it be possible that we were chosen in that difficult situation to carry something for Jesus?

After Jesus was crucified, His body needed to be buried. I doubt anyone made plans for it as his 12 disciples abandoned Him. There remained a task that needed to be done and the most unlikely of candidates chose to muster his courage: Joseph of Arimathea. The Bible says in John 19:38, 39 that he was a disciple “in secret” for fear of the Jews. We always equate secrecy with weakness. This apparently wasn’t so in this Joseph’s case for at the moment when someone was needed, he did what had to be done.

Imagine if Jesus’ body hadn’t been buried in a tomb. In that time when someone was crucified in this situation, unless there was someone willing to bury the body, the dead were thrown onto garbage heaps outside the city where wild animals swiftly disposed of them. If this would have happened to Jesus, there would’ve been no empty tomb to testify of His resurrection, but Joseph of Arimathea did what needed to be done and in the scripture this “secret disciple” is called “righteous.”

Luke 28:50,51 NASB “…Joseph of Arimathea…a good and righteous man…who was waiting for the Kingdom of God.”

I wonder if the key to gathering the courage to do what we need to do at any given moment is found in the character of Joseph: being someone who is waiting for the Kingdom of God. I imagine Joseph followed the ministry of Christ and being a learned man knew the Scripture. As his heart was right in waiting for the Kingdom, he understood to some degree that Jesus was special and part of the plan of the Kingdom he was anxiously waiting for.

Whatever you’re facing today, you can do it, you have the strength in you to get the job done as you focus on God and putting His Kingdom first. You may not understand what is happening but God is with you to complete the task. At the end of the day you’ll be able to look back without regret knowing you did what you had to do. You carried the cross.

1 Samuel 10:7b NLT “…do what must be done, for God is with you.”

Categories
Choices Courage Destiny Faith Fear God's call Kingdom Perspective Popularity Purpose Resurrection

Things Aren’t What They Seem To Be

Play it safe.

Don’t push too far.

Be careful.

Should we chose to follow all safety precautions on every product we buy or activity we take part in, there are still bound to be unforeseen, unplanned, and unexpected complications that will meet us along the way. We simply can’t avoid trouble, it comes with the territory of life.

I’ve said it many times and still hold to this: the safest place to be is in God’s will. There, I find protection, provision, joy, and comfort. There’s nothing that can reach me there; I’m in His pocket ( 1 Sam. 25:29) as it were, close to His heartbeat. From that place, I hear what stirs His heart and I find the courage to reach for things I never dreamt of before, because things aren’t what they seem to be when you’re in the will of God.

John 14:27 ESV “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

It would appear that Jesus was coaching His disciples to really open their eyes to the possibility of things not being as they would appear when He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” At the time being described above in John 14, Jesus had entered into Jerusalem and was preparing His followers to understand that in the days to come, events would unfold that would appear to say, “It’s over.”

The crucifixion was on the horizon, Jesus knew it – but He also knew that the Resurrection was soon to follow on the heels of what would appear to be His end. He knew things weren’t going to be at all as they seemed. Jesus also knew everyone would flee and that He would be left alone to face the cross, yet He did it anyway. Why would He suffer and die when all would leave Him? He also knew that after His Resurrection, no one would believe in Him right away. It took quite a bit of work after He rose to convince those who had fled, that He was really alive. If it had been me making the choice at that juncture, those who had fled would not have been in the running for those chosen to be the leaders of the early church. Yet, by grace, Jesus chose to look beyond what the rest of us would call “the obvious” because He knew that nothing in His Kingdom is as it seems. Jesus knew that those who had fled weren’t at all as they appeared. They were born for something more, they were meant to turn the world “upside down.”

Acts 17:6 ESV “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.”

I see a pattern throughout Scripture where those who dared to live close to the Father’s heartbeat never played it safe. They understood that being led where God took them was the only truly safe place to be – even if that path lead them to a place where it would seem their end was imminent.

Daniel chose the lions.

Paul chose to go to Rome.

Joseph chose to take Mary.

Each one (and many others) could have chosen to follow an easier route, but they didn’t. They knew the worst that could happen would have meant losing their lives, which would only put them in the presence of God; where would the the loss in that have been? They chose His safe place, and as they did, they lived amazing lives of adventure, seeing impossible dreams come true that they didn’t even know they had.

This life and all of its trimmings would have us to believe that living a life of adventure for God is unsafe, unreasonable, and even foolish. For those who don’t know the Father, I can understand those feelings. Still, there’s a thirst in me to see more than a life colored safely in the lines of what seems to be safe places, for in reality nothing is safe apart from God.

My choice is to live far from what seems to be safe; I want to live close to Him and far from things as they seem to be.

“The worship of God is not a rule of safety; it’s an adventure of the spirit.” Alfred North Whitehead

Categories
Dreams Easter Resurrection Vision

Dream On

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Have you ever felt like you’ve lost your dream, your purpose, that you have lost the thing that “makes you tick,” or, have you ever lost your ability to dream? There are few experiences as painful as losing your dreams and visions or your ability to dream. When we lose our dream, it can feel as if we’ve lost our very life’s breath. I’ve heard it said that if we’ve not found anything worth laying our lives down for, what are we living for?

Early on in life, I knew that Africa would play a big role in my history. When asked, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I never had the normal answer to offer: doctor, lawyer, teacher, businesswoman…no, my answer was “I want to be a missionary in Africa.” My answer would be met with a smile, pat on the back, and the words, “Aren’t you just so sweet?” No, the journey to Africa wouldn’t be an easy one, but it was that dream that gave purpose to everything else in my young life.

My vision for missions made me a kind of oddball from day 1 (a real misfit). At first, most thought it was a childish dream, but as the dream stuck, it was what served as my life’s map. It is what made me feel out of place with my peers and it is what made me feel comfortable in my own skin even though it seemed no one else knew what to do with me. The same purpose brought my husband and I together and ultimately had our feet land on the continent for the first time in 1985. The rest, as “they” say, is history; we’ve been inextricably linked to this continent.

Early on in our missionary career, when we were preparing to plant our first church, we set our eyes on going to Burundi. We had heard many horror stories of people working in that small nation – stories of loss and hardship. In our youthful zeal we packed our two young children and ourselves in a plane and flew to this strange land full of hopes and dreams.

Initially, the task of planting a church seemed straightforward: register the church with the government, secure work visas, and off we go. We quickly learned that is not the way things get done – the process was a long and arduous one fraught with sickness, resistance at every corner, and the usual financial strain missionaries face. The dream was nearly lost to us before it began but suddenly, miracle after miracle, we experienced healings, approvals, and somehow the finances were there and our first church plant began.

Time after time over the years, the dream was tested. From civil war to refusals for the church to be registered, there were times we were sure the dream had ended and dreaded what we would wake up to, yet here we are – we’re living the dream.

Did you ever thing you would be part of something like someone else’s dream? Most of us don’t think that anyone would be so interested in us that they would be willing to put everything on the line just for us. The good news is this: there is Someone Who gave His dream up, so that we could live and dream on.

Philippians 2:5-8 NKJ “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

Our dreams now pattern after those of Jesus Whose dreams appeared to die when He died – but when He rose, His dreams rose with Him:

Ephesians 2:4-6 NKJ “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…”

Before we even knew that we were part of a dream, God made a way for those dreams to come true in Christ. The things that try to extinguish God’s dreams in us are little more than distractions because when the Dream came alive on the first Resurrection morning – He gave life to the rest of the dreams He would live through us in times to come.

Ephesians 2:7 NKJ  “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

What gives you a passion for living? If you’ve lost that passion, it’s time to dream again. God has a dream for you to make life so very much worth living.

It’s time to dream on, dear one, dream on.

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