Faith Floats

My life seems unusually difficult these days. Dealing with car and health insurance companies, doctors, family issues....I feel like I am struggling just to tread water.

I imagine those buoys out in the harbor. They, like the little red robin, just keep "bobbing along!" They don't get far, but they keep bouncing up! They are anchored -- placed in a special place to alert sailors to rocks or shoals, or to mark a channel.

They just keep doing their job. Does a buoy ever just give up and sink?
The Holy Spirit gives us buoyancy. He asserts pressure from below to keep us floating and He anchors us just where He wants us. Just where we need to be.

I read these words from R. C. Sproul today:

Have you ever felt you were living your life swimming upstream?

Swimming upstream is difficult, if not impossible. You might make some headway in a wide, slow-moving river. But, if you are in whitewater rafting territory, forget it.

You are going downstream, and no matter how hard you paddle, your strength will not save you. You might even die.

Instead, picture yourself seated in an unsinkable inflated boat as you head down the river. It's inevitable; you will wind up downstream at your destination simply because you are in the boat, whitewater or not.

As a believer, you were chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the earth. Your destination, holiness and blamelessness before God, is assured because you are in the unsinkable boat: Christ. (Ephesians 1:4)

It is not because you have been paddling so hard to meet God's standard of holiness that you arrive.

It is because He is taking you.

Be assured that when you "pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you" (Isaiah 43:2) because He is with you!

O God, please restore my buoyant spirit today!

P.S. When you reach the end of your rope, reach out and touch the hem of His garment!

               This IS How He taught Us!

Thinking about those special words  Christ gave His disciples when  He began to teach them how to pray....

He began, "This then is how you should pray." That sounds pretty specific to me.

Then He started: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed by Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven..."

So that's how we should begin.

Prayers are not fanciful good luck charms. There is a divine method He is showing us.

The very first thing we are to recognize is who we are approaching -- the Sovereign Creator, king and Ruler of everything, reigning right now...and He is our Father! 

We should consider how to get our desires into harmony with Him and His will --not to get Him to do our will.

I usually get it wrong at the very beginning! Do you?

And  when I recognize who God really is, then I have a clearer understanding of who I am!

Then I can offer my worship, which is of course the only possible response

 open to me.  

So this is how we should start every prayer. 

After all, that IS how He taught us!  

  

What to do when Satan comes around?

 

What do you do when Satan sneaks around? 

I had a friend who told me once that when Satan knocks on her door, she just turns to Jesus, and asks, "Would you get that for me, Jesus?" 

Yes, Satan is on the prowl out there, looking "for whom he can devour!"

He is strong. But his time is short.  

Max Lucado reminds us: "Don't face Satan by facing Satan. Face Satan by facing God." And "Glance at Satan, but gaze on Christ." 

Remember who Satan is...but focus on who you are!  

"I cannot be separated from the love of God" (Romans 8:35).

"I have been bought with a price - I belong to God" (I Corinthians 6:20)

And "I have not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).

Remind him, and yourself, that in God we have "grace and mercy for help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). Any time and every time!

Then tell Satan to just "get lost!"

C S Lewis - No Ordinary People

     There are No Ordinary People....


It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.

The load, or weight,  or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long, we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.

It is the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit -- immoral horrors or everlasting splendors.

This does not mean we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

Next to be Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.

If he is our Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat - the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

    --- From The Weight of Glory, by C S Lewis

Mercy and Grace Before We Ask?

 In John 8 we read the well-known account of the woman caught in adultery. The religious leaders brought her to Jesus -- for punishment -- but  mostly to trap Him and find cause to accuse and discredit Him publicly. 

The first, and obvious question, is "Where is the man?" They said she was 'caught in the act.' The law was clear -- the man was also guilty. They didn't seem to care very much about that detail!

So she is standing there alone -- obviously guilty -- no defense lawyer to plead her case. Alone. A cruel death waiting for her.

What is Jesus doing? Starting to write something on the ground with His finger....in a kneeling position as we picture it. He makes His famous answer, "Let any of you who is without sin be the first one to throw a stone at her."

They begin to walk away and then only Jesus and the guilty woman are left. "Neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin."

Notice He forgave her first! He didn't parole her; didn't tell her to change her life and then come back and report to Him.

He forgave her first! He gave her mercy and grace before she even asked. Freedom. A  second chance. A new life. 

What an amazing God we have!