My son Xander turned 1 today…

where did the time go? It seems like only 6 months or less have flown by.

I am so blessed by all my children, not the least of all Xander, my little smiling man. He is a joy, a delight and can warm the coldest and brighten the darkest of days. I am thankful for the gift in our children, each one different, and Xander has filled me with wonder that yet more love can come out of this heart.

I think a lot these days about the world that my children are entering. And that gets me to thinking about the children that I am sending out into the world. will I have done enough? will I have prepared them? will they be able to stand up under all that is against them?

so I have been starting to pray, and pray more specifically.

God, Father, Lord, you are in the heavens and we here on earth. We praise your name, your works inumerable, your attributes infinite, your perfection grand and your might without equal. You have showered blessing upon blessing and I feel and am so unworthy of your gifts. These children you have put in my possession, how can I respond? You love us who deserve it not and you care for those that often turn away. You use the weak. We cannot understand your ways. We praise your mercy and grace and we seek your glory.

God, my children, they are yet young. God preserve them for your name. Keep them for your glory. let them not wander from your path, let them not fall away from your presence. Help me God impart some inkling of your greatness that I struggle to see. Help me teach them and lead them to the foot of your cross. Help me God to raise them to honor you and live for you and not for this world. I pray that I would lead out in that as their example. God help me raise my daughters to seek you and trust in you. Help me Father raise my son to look to you, to follow you, to not seek his own way, but yours. Help me to do the same Lord, that he might see you in me, and me living in you. You have brought him to one year, give him many more to know you and to live for you if you would. Make him your own and let him know you closer and sweeter. Help me to know you. Help me to encourage him towards you. God without you, all is futile, meaningless. Help me God to honor and glorify you with and through my children. Let none of them go from your hand, draw them and keep them, for eternity.

God I’m a faulty man. I’m weak where I shouldn’t be, prideful where I shouldn’t be. God have mercy on me and use me in my children’s life despite of me and my faults and let me not cloud their vision of you.

My children, my family are yours. I pray you keep us. use us. make us your own. remake us as you see fit. God help us obey, help us love, help us submit to your call, your will and your way.

In Jesus Name…
amen.

I’m not here much any more. life is busy. I’m busy. life has been both joyous and dark and dealing with that is difficult. It is hard being joyful when your flesh wants it’s own way. I have things to figure out. things to stand up for, things to let go. counseling to begin, chapters to end and chapters to begin. A desire to write once more. But I don’t know what. I desire that God would keep me and that He would sovereignly keep me through the darkness, through the trial. May the reality be, and may I recognize it, that He is all I have anyway, despite my feelings and my attachments. The distractions mount, the desires come and yet all that really matters is God. Now to make the connection from the mind to the heart. Hard to do swimming in darkness. Afraid of the unknown. God keep me and have mercy on me in my weakness. Grow me and strengthen me that I might once again soar high in Joy of you. God help me wait on you, I do it so infrequently. Help me know what that means and calm my heart while you work.

In Christ I pray, amen.

James 1:11-12 For the sun rises with it’s scorching heat and withers the grass, the flower falls and it’s beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

How many times has the sun risen and fallen on you in your life? For me it is about 12960 times give or take a month. How many rich men have been driven in their pursuits and lost in them and faded away into the past. Countless. And countless more. James is pointing out here that the sun consistently rises and wastes the flower. It happens over and over again. It happens over and over again to man as he chases and becomes enamored by other things that aren’t God. We all do it to some extent. And so as simply as the sun rising again, another rich man (focused on wealth) perishes, fades away, is forgotten. The one who is focused on God and seeks Him for his joy is not forgotten, but remembered and preserved forever and ever. They will receive the crown of life? simply because he stands under a great weight? no. because the power that allows him to stand up under the weight is God, power He has received because God has brought him to love Him. We persevere, not by our own strength, or might or finances, but because God allows and empowers us to do so. God does the work. He gets the glory and we get the joy of being with Him for eternity. It doesn’t seem quite right that He would crown us with life, but this is in fact what he does for those that love Him more than wealth and possessions and self. May we be aware and desirous of God, may we love Him in response to the great love and mercy and grace he has shown us.

I struggle. I struggle with my response to pain and suffering in my life. I want to avoid it at all costs, the world tells me over and over again this is ok. I take Aleve, Tylenol, Advil to escape pain. I sleep to make the worst headaches go away when other things will not work. I avoid “ugly situations” in hopes that my life will remain problem free. I avoid making people mad and frustrating others that my comfort and security in how they feel about me remains untouched. I have heating and cooling to make me comfortable. Cars to drive. A house that although by today’s standards of house costs is a deal, is a palace of indescribable value and luxury to much of the population of the world that exists in 3rd world countries where clean water is not an option. I don’t bring myself pain and suffering in my struggle against sins. Sins such as gluttony, complacency, my thought life, my lack of love for others. I see in many ways that I don’t go the distance to embrace pain and suffering in areas that require it that I might know Christ more. I don’t in any way want to be in the midst of pain and suffering in any aspect of my life. I struggle with that. why? because it is unbiblical to avoid pain at the extent to which I often avoid it. Does any of this sound familiar to you? in your life?

I dislike this about myself. But the true question is, what will I do about it. More over, what will Christ do in me about it. Not to lay the responsibility on Him, it is mine to bear, but He must empower my efforts to lay down these habits and actions in exchange for those that bring me closer to Him and the joy of that. Look at this verse from Hebrews that shows Christ’s willing embrace of pain and suffering compared with our feeble complaining of the things that we endure.

Hebrews 12:1-6 and on…
1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Do Not Grow Weary
3Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”

Look how verse 3 shows that considering Christ’s work is to encourage us in our struggles. That shows me that it is not natural for the flesh to embrace pain and suffering. This encourages me, it shows me the feeling is natural, but what encourages me more is that we are called out by Christ to be like Him, He promises persecution, trials and struggles, in all different ways. Not only does He call us to it, but He Himself willingly subjected himself the full distance unto death. We may not get called that far, but it is our example to follow. What makes it possible to do so? Faith. and a mindset and vision that the immediate world is not all that there is, but that there is a greater prize and reward waiting on the other side of death for those that love Him and are called by Him. an eternity with the Living God, Creator, Wonderful Savior. Without that desire, a view of the joy that is to come, not much can be endured. There is no joy in the things of this world or virtue in pain and suffering in themselves enough to persevere you.

God brings discipline on His children. If you read on, you see how this is for our good, and it often is not pleasant at the time, but in retrospect it is viewed as necessary and appreciated. I will develop these thoughts more in this post and the next. But for now, think of how we are programmed to avoid all pain and suffering and sorrow. compare that with Christ’s sacrifice. You will see that they are diametrically opposed. I want to be on the side of Christ. more later. May God bless your thoughts and prayers, your days and actions.

James 1:9-10 Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away.

Life is brief and in death the rich and the poor are made equal. We have the same fate as far as this physical life is concerned. We will not live this life forever. But for those that believe, we will live forever with Christ. The rich cannot buy anything that will take away death. None of the accumulation of wealth, prestige or fame will do anything to preserve his life for another day past what the Lord has ordained. In the end, we often will find that the things we pursued with great fervor were not necessarily all that important and the things that were important, we failed to heed. How we should pray that this will not be so. The lowly, the poor, the down trodden are blessed in many ways, for although the world looks on them with scorn, they have not many of the distractions that separate us from the Lord. Jesus called them blessed in the Beatitudes. He said that the rich man would find it difficult to get into heaven. Whatever our status here in the states is, we are rich, beyond anything most other cultures can imagine. And yet we always want more. There is always something more that I want to acquire. We are distracted. I pray that I am not receiving my reward in stuff. What difference it would be if our joy was not culminated in the amount of our possessions, but if our joy was centered upon daily tasting of God’s goodness and grace that He showers upon us. If we lost all things tonight, could we be happy in God. I’m not saying that it would be easy, but could you still praise God if all you had was taken away like what happened to Job? these are things to consider as we think about our maturity and relationship with God and our real motives and desires.