Faith That Runs Deep

"It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if no rough winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree, and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many storms that have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the depth into which the roots have forced their way."

C.H. Spurgeon, in his classic devotional work, "Mornings and Evenings," penned these words on July 11th, over 100 years ago. But they ring profoundly true today, as if they were written personally for me, and for several people I know, who are currently enduring painful trials.

One of my character traits (or flaws?) is to question everything. "What could possibly be the purpose for this extremely painful trial?" If I understand the "why" I can accept it. I may not enjoy it, but it at least helps me make sense of the whole thing.

But as I've written previously, we are rarely ever told the answer to "why?"

However, today I was given another glimpse into the reason for our painful trials and suffering. And, oddly enough, the answer was actually found in the Bible. (Go figure!)

"But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus—after you have suffered for a little while—perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you." (1 Peter 5:10)

Spurgeon goes on to write:

"The Christian is made strong and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of life. [Therefore], do not shrink from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling this benediction in you."

I know that for me—the more severe the storm—the tighter I cling to Jesus, and ever deeper go the roots of my faith in Him.

What a precious gift from God our faith is! And that's the purpose for our trials.

God wants us to cling to Him, rely wholly on Him, trust fully in Him, and be totally dependent on Him. So, is it any wonder that when we seek comfort, pleasure and fulfillment in other things or in other people, that these other little 'gods' in our life are shaken up and sometimes taken away?

Spurgeon writes:

"Seek, oh believer, so that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription on the rock! May your faith be no "baseless fabric of a vision," but may it be built of material able to endure that awful fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled and established that all the blasts of hell, and the storms of earth shall never be able to move you."

To be "established in the faith," as the writer of Hebrews writes, one has to, "suffer for a little while."

So if you're suffering for God's righteousness' sake, meaning—not because of your own rebellion or stupidity; then take courage; your are being perfected, established, strengthened and settled in Christ.

And here's more good news:

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." (Romans 8:18)

The trials and sufferings of this life are only temporary. And we, as followers of Christ, are soon heading to a place and eternal existence where God promises there will be no more pain, sorrow or death:

"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4)

Until that Day however, let the painful storms and trials of this life drive the roots of your faith deep into the Rock—Jesus Christ. He can personally relate with your pain. The Bible says He has felt all our infirmities:

"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Hebrews 4:15)

Although I cannot provide any specific Bible passages to you to categorically prove this, it is my personal belief that part of the reason Christ came to this earth and became flesh and suffered for us, is so that God almighty could feel what we feel and relate with us personally. God is Spirit, and before Christ became a Man, God did not have a physical body like He did when Christ took a physical body upon Himself. God, as Spirit, could not feel exactly what we as humans feel. He could not experience the same kind of human pain, sorrow and anguish we feel and experience in our weakness as human beings. And I believe He became a Man to know us more deeply and personally because of His great love for us individually and personally.

That's how much He loves you and loves me.

Meditate on the following verses from Isaiah 53:3-4

"He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted."

Jesus was said to be a Man of sorrows, and was acquainted with grief. He bore our grief and carried our sorrows. If this doesn't break your heart and fill your eyes with tears, I don't know what will.

Because of His great love for us, He chose to personally feel all our pain, sorrow and grief. The Bible says He "carried our sorrows." He knows what it's like to feel the sting of being rejected by His own family. He knows what it's like to feel the loneliness you are feeling. He knows what it feels like to experience the sorrow of losing a loved one. God Himself knows what it's like to experience the pain and weakness of being in a human body. He knows what it feels like to be unwanted.

Doesn't that just make you want to cling to Him, and thank Him, and love Him even more?

It does me. Thank You Lord for Your great love for me!

And thank You for this current trial in my life—through which You are perfecting, establishing, strengthening and settling me—in You.


—God is Love and Love Never Fails.

Footprints

    Where God's presence abides—so too, does the sweet fragrance of Christ linger.

I was looking through an old journal yesterday and came across some poetry that my wife had written in my book in 2007. My wife does not consider her writing poetry, but rather, song lyrics.

You see, she has this amazing relationship with Christ where she spends intimate time reading His Word and talking to Him, and He gives her these incredible, spontaneous songs as part of her worship to Him.

They are love letters to Her Savior.

When I thought of how happy I was that she wrote a couple of her sweet little songs in my journal, I couldn't get over how blessed I was that I still have them here in my little book. I will always have them. They are a part of her. And she is a part of me.

But something greater was unfolding in what God was speaking to my heart about these sweet songs, and the fact that she wrote them down for me. These little jewels were His footprints—traces of His presence in our lives.

Think of all the amazing things that have happened to you since you first knew Jesus.

Think of all the wonderful people you have come to know and be friends with. Think of the many blessings and provision God has bestowed upon you. Think of all the many times when He encouraged you when you were hurting, when He lifted you up when you were weak and when He gave you His peace when nothing in your life made sense.

Think of all the times when you were without hope and you cried out to Him and He met you in your time of need.

Think of those precious times when His presence changed everything.

All these wonderful blessings, people, provision, and peace from His presence are footprints in the sand of your life. They are traces of His presence.

My wife is also a Sunday school teacher for the 4 year old's at our church. She loves these little lambs like they were own. I have seen her get home from work at 9:30 on a Saturday evening, and then stay up past midnight making sure her lesson is just right, and she makes these incredible crafts that she joyfully creates out of pure love for these children—and for her Savior, Jesus.

I told her last night that every little encouragement she gives these children, every creative craft she creates for them in love, every smile that she gives these precious little lambs—are God's footprints—evidence of His presence in her life. In our house we call it "fruitiness."

The same is true in your life.

Every hug you give to a person who is hurting, every hour you spend with a friend who is feeling hopeless, every phone call you make to reach out to someone who feels alone, every prayer you pray for someone who needs God's love—these are God's footprints in the sand of your life.

Evidence of His presence.

The secret to experiencing God's presence the way that my wife does is spending intimate time with Him.

When you spend quality time time loving Jesus, talking to Him, reading His Word, listening for His gentle voice—the goodness of His presence in you—rivers of living water—will overflow out of your life, and touch others with His love.

There is nothing more beautiful.

Jesus said:

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:38)

The reason I started this blog, and why I continue to write to this day, is I love to share what God has done, and what He is doing in our lives. My hope and prayer has always been that by sharing my stories of God's blessings and grace that He has touched us with, that others will be encouraged and lifted up, and ultimately—they will see the goodness and faithfulness of God and draw near to Him.

Looking back and seeing His footprints throughout my life with Him, I thank Jesus for walking with me—carrying me when I could go no further—and continuously blessing me with the evidence of His presence.

God's footprints reveal the times of His presence with us personally.

And I especially thank Him for blessing me with my wife, who brings His sweetness and sun shine into my life every day.

    —Where God's presence abides—so too, does the sweet fragrance of Christ linger.

—God is Love, and Love Never Fails.

Coincidence?— I Think Not!

Have you ever had a strange experience where, seemingly by chance, you run into someone, and after talking for several minutes, you discover that the similarities in what you've both been going through are so strikingly similar, that it seems like there must be a reason that you bumped into each other today?

Perhaps you turn on the radio on your way to work and the guy is talking in specific detail about the exact same thing that you're going through, and as he lays out some specific passages of scripture to bring comfort to someone who is going through what you're going through, you realize that these passages are exactly the same ones you were reading and meditating on when you got up this morning.

Maybe you're on your way somewhere and you stop at an intersection, and the light turns green and it's your turn to go. But something in you subtly tells you to look again, even though when you looked both ways before, there were no cars coming. And yet, as you look again, a speeding car races dangerously through the intersection, and had you gone when the light turned green, you most certainly would have died.

Coincidence?

All the above instances, and many others too numerous to mention here, have happened to us over the last ten years. We stopped believing in coincidences many years ago. In our house, we have a saying. If me or my wife says "Coincidence?" The other will quickly respond, "I think not!"

Too many strange but wonderful things have happened to us, and to the people we know, since we have become followers of Christ. And they simply cannot be coincidences. You know God has His hand in it.

As my daughter so perfectly stated it the other day, "You know it has God's fingerprints all over it."

I've spoken at length in my last few posts how God is sovereign over all things.The Bible also says He has "ordered our steps." He doesn't make our choices for us, but knowing in advance all the choices we will make, He sometimes orchestrates situations and circumstances that will give us everything we need to know to make the right choices. And if we are on a path to making bad choices, He will sometimes place obstacles in our way to deter us, and to help warn us of the perils of choosing unwisely.

But having been given the gift of freewill, we still have to choose wisely.

Because I love and respect my friend who I am writing about next, I will only speak in generalities, respecting his right to privacy. Back on June 11th when I had my seizure from my neurological disorder, ending up in the emergency room, I wrote a blog entry about the experience two days later on June 13th. I titled it, "The Blessing of Not Knowing Why."

http://marriage-miracles.blogspot.com/2012/06/blessing-of-not-knowing-why.html

I sent out a group email to virtually everyone on my email list, to inform them of this new change in my life, and to ask for prayer. I also included a link to the blog post mentioned above. Some people responded, but not everyone, and that's fine. My primary goal was to get the blog post out to give my testimony of how the Lord is faithful and He is working in and through this difficult trial in our life.

Over a week later, I sent a short email to my friend about something fishing related. He responded to let me know he hasn't had any time for fishing as he had just experienced a personal tragedy of a magnitude that I  could never comprehend experiencing. But in his response he kindly wrote:

"I received your email last week about your condition and your faith in God. I was so very touched by your words. I was so moved and found comfort in your words—very timely. :-) Thank-you."

The fact that my friend was comforted in his time of pain by the simple words that God gave me to write in the blog post is blessing enough. But there's so much more to the story. This is a friend that I have known since the mid- 1980's, and worked with again in 1990.  But we hadn't really seen him much since then. My wife and I bumped into him in the grocery store a few months ago and it was great to see him. Since that chance meeting in the grocery store, I've definitely been praying that God would bless him.

One "coincidental?" fact in this story is that the tragedy my friend experienced was on the exact same day I experienced my seizure. That's odd enough. But what really floors me about this whole story, is I would have never been in the position to write that blog post about "The Blessing of Not Knowing Why" and then email it to my friend unless I had that seizure in eastern Idaho.

Do you see how huge the implications are?

My friend and I are 're-connected' in the grocery store a few months ago. So great to see him, and I began to pray for him. Totally out of the blue I have this seizure followed by a diagnosis of a strange neurological condition that I may be stuck with for life. Through a casual email exchange a short time later, my friend shares his story with me about this life-changing tragedy he has experienced. But God brings comfort to him through my simple little blog where I was able to share my story.

Coincidence?—  I think not!

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way." (Psalm 37:23)

My friend and I have had some good conversations since that initial email chat. I was even able to visit him for almost an hour this week. When we were done talking I reached out to shake his hand but he gave me a great big hug. I know the Lord brought us together and He made a connection. This whole situation is not just a coincidence and God has a purpose for orchestrating it.

When I read my friends email response to my wife she wept, and said, "See, God has a purpose in all of this."

And I know that He does.

His fingerprints are all over it.

The moral of the story is, be sensitive to, and aware of the people that God brings into your life. Chance meetings or what may seem like coincidences may in fact be a divine setup. And in our case, so many have, just like this story I have just shared with you.

Please pray for my friend, and for God's healing during this great tragedy in his life. He's really a great guy and I hope he knows how much we love and appreciate him.

And for all those who are currently going through painful and difficult trials—God has a purpose for allowing you to go through them. Only God knows why. But let Him use you to bring encouragement and hope to others who are hurting—through your trial—not in spite of it.

I would never have been able to say this before, but I can truly count my difficult and painful trial a blessing because of how God has used it to bless others who are hurting, and I choose to count it all as joy—to the glory of God.

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:6-9)


—God is Love and Love Never Fails.