Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Psalm 130:6  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

About 25 years ago, in our Sunday service, a song based on this verse was being sung.  The words of the song were describing a passionate longing for the Lord that I didn’t have.  In the distress of this realization, I went forward in the midst of it being sung and spoke to our rector who was leading worship.  I told him, “I can’t sing this song because it doesn’t describe me.”  When the song ended, I was so blessed by his words of wisdom.  He commented, “When we sing songs that don’t describe us, let the song be a prayer that you are asking to become true of you.”

God used this experience to create within me the desire to become passionate for Him – with a passion that was palpable.  I began searching for verses in the Psalms that communicated passion to me – and I found many of them.  Another verse that particularly struck me was Psalm 42:1, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”  I wanted to have my soul pant for the Lord.  These verses then became the focus of my “Lord make this me” prayers.

My passion-meter or “passiometer” as I have referred to it, was not budging at all when this began.  No passion was being reflected within me as I read and prayed the passion verses that I wanted to become true of me.  Week after week; month after month; year after year, I prayed these verses throughout the Psalms.

As time went by, I was thrilled by the realization that the Lord was doing it.  He caused passion to grow within me so that I could honestly say that these verses were now describing me. I hadn’t “arrived” but my “passiometer” was now registering passion within me as a Geiger counter recognizes radiation.

God in His goodness allowed me to see that I was missing such an important attribute that He wants growing in me. He desires me to become more and more passionate for Him.  He gave me a plan and the determination to pursue it so He could bless me by answering it.  He will do the same for you.

Psalm 42:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and ⁶ my God.

Have you noticed that difficult situations can have a strong impact upon us particularly if they drag on and on?  (Even more difficult has been the past three years with the coronavirus where our world has never experienced anything like it.)  Difficult situations can wear us down.   Consider being in a boat without power at sea that is drifting with the current towards a reef.  The sound of the waves pounding the reef are harbingers of the doom that is about to smash our boat and us to smithereens.  It’s just a matter of time…

Think of being overcome with distress and ‘downcast’ as the boat drifts nearer the reef. But then an unseen voice cries out to us, “You are in a sailboat!” We respond, “So?”  The voice speaks again, “Put up your sail!”  (Let’s assume we are really dense)  To which we reply, “What will that do?”

The voice answers, “The wind is blowing away from the reef – and it is stronger than the current!”  We obey the voice and put up the sail – and as we do, the wind catches it and moves us away.  The reef and pounding waves are still there but we are not at their mercy.

At this point, instead of thinking this is a dumb illustration, consider how often we succumb emotionally and spiritually to the stresses in our lives instead of looking to Christ.  Through our hope and trust in Him, He provides the ‘sail’ and the ‘wind’ to take us to spiritual peace and security; He frees us from being downcast and overcome with fear.

With our focus on Jesus, let us walk in faith, His wisdom and trust.  We are not at the mercy of our circumstances!  In the midst of whatever we find ourselves in, Jesus is our hope, our joy and our strength.  Let us look to Him.

Lamentations 3:22-23 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

These verses make me think of a pastoral picture.  Think of a large flower garden with the morning sun upon it.  There is a breeze blowing and rain is falling upon the garden from a small cloud above it.  Sunshine, rain, a breeze and flowers blooming providing both enjoyment and a place to labor.  It is a picture of freshness, vitality, beauty and joy.  Day by day God’s provision is there.

That picture is such a thing of beauty to me, just like the marvelous realities that these verses describe!  God’s love for us is fixed and unchanging and unending.  It never ceases.  It doesn’t depend upon us thinking it’s there.  It is there for us to experience – to trust in and to enjoy.  It’s like the air we breathe, it’s there. Think of the times when we feel the wind blowing upon us.  The air, that we typically don’t see or feel manifests itself in a way so we feel it.  God does the same thing with His love for us.

Likewise His mercies – they never come to an end and are new every morning.  Think of the manna – the bread of Heaven – that came down every day for the Israelites when they were in the wilderness.  Each day they could only take what was needed for that day.  Tomorrow’s manna, came the next day, not today – except on the 6^th day when God supplied double because the 7^th day was the Sabbath.  His mercies are never ending and there for us each day.

Consider that it is impossible for God to be unfaithful.  If we think that He is or has been unfaithful, we’re simply wrong.  Think of situations when you have been faithful to someone or experienced someone being faithful to you. Faithfulness is such a blessing – something so important to be able to count on.  In our times of need, God is always there.  He’s always faithful.  The blessings He offers if we but have the eyes to see and the sense to turn to Him.

Be a blessing to God each morning by recognizing and being thankful for His love, His mercies and most of all, for Him.

Nahum 1:7  The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble.  He cares for those who trust in him,

Have you thought about the question, “How do I demonstrate to the Lord that I trust Him?”  Particularly as we contend with the radical changes in our culture due to responses to the coronavirus and the rejection of Judeo-Christian values going on around us. Trusting God is supposed to be a way of life for Christians, but how do we know that we’re actually doing it?  Is trusting God one of those things where we can just take it for granted that we’re doing it – only to discover that we’re not?  Is this something we have to be intentional about?

We heard a powerful message that was one in a series on what the good news of the gospel really is.  The focus was upon having a life that tastes the goodness and power of God and that demonstrates dependence upon the Lord.  The primary way this is done is through prayer.  And prayer is something that defines who we are – much more that it being a weapon to be pulled out in times of need.

Prayer expresses our dependence, our helplessness and trust in our Lord.  It is a continuation of our acknowledgement of our need for God that we experienced when we were born again.  It is a daily acknowledgement and recognition that we need Him in all the areas of our lives – not just those where we feel needy.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to ‘get’.  It is the life-blood of our relationship with Him.  He wants us to have times set aside for Him AND times throughout the day where we talk with Him in the midst of all we are doing.

While He encourages us to make our needs known to Him, He wants us to develop an ever-richer relationship with Him.  The amazing thing is the reality of how many of our ‘needs’ disappear because they are dealt with by our thriving relationship with Him.  And for those needs that don’t, He is our refuge.  He enables us to walk wisely and in obedience through those needs.

Proverbs 16:3 Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. (Amplified)

Yesterday I wrote about this verse and how God will cause our thoughts to become agreeable to His will when we commit what we do to the Lord.  One of the wonderful things that God does with this is put us into ‘divine appointments’.  I was reading in my journal from several years ago about how God did exactly this with my wife Donna.

It was Sunday June 24 and we were living in Colorado Springs.  On this particular day Donna had a ‘bee in her bonnet’ about going to look at a new subdivision of 24 homes in Manitou Springs.  Upon arriving there she recognized the salesperson as Jill – someone she had worked with at a different subdivision when Donna had a job as a temp employee.  They talked and Donna wound up sharing the events in her life since they had worked together – particularly focusing on her termination the previous August of her job as a sales coordinator with a wonderful new home builder.

Donna shared how much she loved her job – and how she cried all the way home after being told they had to let her go (due to the downturn in the real estate market).  But she recognized that she had two choices 1) blame God and react negatively, or 2) recognize that God was closing one door but others would be opened.  She shared with Jill how she chose to look to God, making the right faith response.

The very next day, Jill was let go by her employer.  She just could not get over the fact that
Donna had been there less than 24 hours earlier talking to her about that exact experience!  Jill had never had anything like that happen before.  They both were so blessed by this Divine Appointment.

It’s important to recognize that it became a Divine Appointment because of what was shared.  If Donna hadn’t shared her experience, the opportunity would have been missed.  But by doing so, Jill was able to experience the Lord’s love and concern – plus through Donna, He showed her the way to go and an example to follow.

Proverbs 16:3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. (NIV) –

(Amplified Bible):   Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed.

There’s the story of the two guys in a boat way out in the ocean.  The one says, “Man – look at all the water!”  The other replies, ‘Yeah – and to think that’s just the top of it!”  Words have meaning – and those meanings usually involve a whole lot more than we might think.  It’s amazing how life changing words in scripture can be when we understand the depth of meaning that they have.

When I first read this verse in other versions of the Bible it seemed like a simple, straightforward recipe for success.  In order to succeed, all we have to do is commit what we’re doing to the Lord.  That seemed pretty simple to do.  But what exactly does it mean to commit something to the Lord?   What about all the times when our plans are unclear or we’re questioning what God wants us to do?  And doesn’t God’s idea of success sometimes differ from what we think?

When I first read this verse in the Amplified Bible it seemed to jump off the page.  I saw what was involved in committing my way to the Lord!  But more than that, the verse describes how God would respond and impact our thoughts, our plans and their development!  The understanding that “He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will” is priceless to the committed believer.

We want to do His will in every area of our life: personal, family, business, faith, …  We want our plans to conform to His plans for us.  We want every decision we make – from the big ones to the little ones that fill our day – to be consistent with a Christ-centered life.  This verse contains the promise and blueprint of how it can happen.

By embracing this process, the Lord will grow our confidence in Him.  We will see the quality of our decisions and lives improve.  The more we commit our way to Him; the more we allow Him to transform our thoughts and plans – the more we will experience the ‘God-results’ that He has for us.  (‘God results’ = God’s idea of success)

Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This verse really underscores the importance of the Scriptures and the critical role they play in our lives.  Their absence is debilitating while their presence is empowering.  By absence, I mean that we have a casual approach to the Scriptures and the role they play in our lives.  By ‘presence’ I mean that we embrace the Scriptures; learn them and apply them.  They develop the framework through which we view life.  They are the basis for us defining what is good and evil.

How do we resist being overcome by evil if we don’t recognize the evil that surrounds us?  While much evil is obvious, there is much that is not.  Likewise we must learn to recognize good.  The problem is twofold: the society around us is clueless as to good and evil; and the Church is greatly affected by the fact that our culture has so infiltrated the church.  This results in the problem that Isaiah identified in 5:20 where he pronounces a warning:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

Did we ever think that our society would become so deceived? We must recognize that this is going on all around us now and the Scriptures enable us to address it.  In Hebrews 5:13-14 we see the reality of this problem and the vital role God’s Word has:

¹³ Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

The Lord wants our lives to glorify Him.  We are able to do that by living lives that are not overcome by evil, rather we overcome evil with good.

Proverbs 20:12  Ears that hear and eyes that see— the LORD has made them both.

Opportunities – they surround us each and every day.  How many righteous opportunities do we miss because we don’t perceive them?  How many unrighteous ones do we walk into because we don’t perceive their nature either?  Today, let’s focus on the righteous opportunities that are there around us.

When our two oldest sons were little we lived in Wheaton, IL.  Nearby was Morton Arboretum.  We loved to take John & Jamie for hikes there.  In the spring of one year something important occurred.  We were walking through the woods and I asked them what colors did they see?  They answered, “Brown, black, gray.”  I said to look closer and got the same answer of, “Brown, black, gray.”  They just saw soil, leaves covering the ground, tree trunks and tree limbs without leaves – all brown, black and gray.

Then I pointed to a tree and said to look beneath it.  When they started to answer, “Brown”, I said, to look closer – in the leaves to the left of the tree.  All of a sudden they shouted, “Oh, there’s green!”  I pointed to another area and they shouted, “There’s pink!  Blue!  White!”

They began to see the spring flowers in bloom all around us.  They just hadn’t seen the colorful flowers before because they were distracted by the dominant brown, black and gray.  Their eyes were opened, by being trained in what to look for.

We likewise have to train our spiritual eyes and ears to recognize many of the opportunities that the Lord puts in our path.  We can miss so much “color” because of the brown, black and gray of life.  But with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can see and embrace many more of the beautiful and colorful opportunities that are all around us.  Ask Him to train your eyes and ears to perceive them, and He will.

Luke 24:30-32  ³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³²They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

This incident of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus encountering Jesus is one of the more wonderful ones in the Bible.  They were downcast – even though they were aware that some of the women had been to the tomb and had a vision of angels telling them that Jesus was alive. They didn’t understand what had happened or why.

They had such hope in Jesus and it was snatched away from them in such an incredibly vicious way.  Then as they were walking, something unusual happened to them.  Jesus himself came along and walked with them, but they were kept from recognizing him.  The scriptures are clear that understanding of the unfolding events of Jesus’ suffering and death were hidden from the disciples whenever Jesus spoke about it prior to his death.  It was only afterward that Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the scriptures.

So Jesus joined them as they walked along, and said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Then, since it was nearly evening, they stopped for the night and strongly urged this man walking with them to stop and stay with them.  It’s apparent that they were deeply moved by what he had said to them, even though they didn’t know who he was.  Because they insisted that he stay with them, they experienced the wonder of God in having their eyes opened to see this man was Jesus – raised from the dead.

Isn’t it fascinating that God would have Jesus appear to these two men but prevent them from recognizing him?  It was important for them to listen to the message of this stranger and understand the “why” of what happened to Jesus.  The events that happened to him were foretold in Scripture and they needed to understand it – rather than simply see Jesus and get excited.  When God opened their eyes to recognize Jesus, they understood!  The life, death and resurrection of Jesus were fulfillment of God’s purpose.

Matthew 26:31 Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’”

Any understanding of the events of Jesus’ suffering and death was hidden from the disciples whenever Jesus spoke about it prior to his death (Luke 18:34).  It was only after his resurrection that Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.  But while the events were unfolding and following his death, they didn’t understand what was happening or why or what it all was leading to.

They had such hope in Jesus – and He and that hope were snatched away from them in such an incredibly vicious way.  On top of that they all had fled just as he said they would. I cannot imagine the pain, despair and hopelessness that they experienced at His arrest, crucifixion and death.  How could they console one another? There had never been anyone like Jesus

Our view is so dominated by the knowledge and joy that Jesus rose from the dead, it’s difficult to comprehend the pain they went through.  That pain, and restless sleepless nights would have continued not only on that Friday, but on Saturday and into Sunday.

I think of the scenes of Aslan’s death from ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’.  Lucy and Susan watched as the hundreds of horrible creatures tortured and then killed Aslan.  In their heartbreak, they witnessed the jubilation of the Witch and the wicked host who believed they had won and that nothing could now stop them.  Aslan was now gone forever.  The girls’ tears and misery lasted throughout the night.  In the morning they experienced more pain as they tried to untie Aslan’s body.  They had no idea what was about to happen.

Two thousand years ago, the first disciples spent today in such pain.  Wicked men had killed Jesus of Nazareth, the man so used by God and they were helpless to stop it.  They experienced the shame of running and hiding.  They deserted Jesus – just as he said they would.  They didn’t understand what was about to happen.