So, was it really so? Did a co – pilot take down the plane? So ~ then no one really knows who’s flying our planes these days, taking who knows who to who knows where ~ or not??? Just sayin’
— feeling confused.
So what do we do with that? This world is so messed up and apparently we can’t trust the pilots, even though they’ve made it through their high quality testing and all security rules and regulations. On board to assist in the flight of a plane and instead take it over and take it down with all passengers in one big explosion! How senseless? How crazy? How would this happen with our strict security regulations of air flight? No answers and never any concrete solutions. Not in this world.
There are no concrete solutions to the abstractness of everything going on around us? It appears the more men try to fix issues and take control the more out of hand it gets. It shakes the very core of our being and strikes fear into our souls. For sure this is a time when we need our faith in God to be a substantial concrete foundation for our fleeting lives; built on the solid rock that can’t move or wash away or change with the winds, or the times. An abstract faith in stuff won’t cut it to give us any sense of peace because possessions are here today and gone tomorrow. They explode in plane crashes, go up in smoke with fires, rust and decay in bad weather. Yeah, maybe they’re fun for a time but without any promise of hope! We need God ~ the One True sovereign God who knows the end from the beginning and knows that the world is the way it is because sin is sin and the world is full of it. The One who knows planes will go down, trains will derail, cars will crash, people will kill, and thieves will steal! The One who knows fires will devastate, tsunamis will flood, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes and tornadoes will destroy! He knows all about the bad things and the sin that rampages the world. and yet, in His love, He came to offer the salvation solution and free us from its icy grip. The world won’t heal until it’s people do and the salvation God offers is the only way!
Turning, repenting, humbling and healing. It’s the only way to find peace in a senseless world where there is no peace.
2 Chronicles 7: 13 -14 “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land. “Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.…
Some childhood memories are so traumatic for us as we grow up that even the smallest things leave a huge impression and have so much impact that we don’t forget them, ever. I remember one such incident when I was young ~ oh maybe about 6 or 7 years of age that still makes me shiver with fear. I loved the great outdoors where my make-believe world could be an orange Wednesday if I wished or perhaps blue or a favorite pink if I really wanted it to be! All I had to do was imagine that it was, and it colored the beauty of my imaginary world with pure fun and excitement! It was back in the day when a kid’s life wasn’t regimented with schedules and pressure to perform and excel, but just to be a simple kid and enjoy the simplicity of it all ~ or most of it. Sometimes, even on pink Wednesdays, things could get quite complex, and my simple imaginations were taken over by realistic events that weren’t imaginary at all, but very, very real ~ oh how I wish some of those moments had been only in my dreams. One time, when I thought no bad thing could break through the pinkness of my day, my child sized hand touched a telephone pole and when I pulled it away I found it crawling with bird lice ~ and my pink day full of my fun, pink, imaginations very quickly darkened and overshadowed with fear. Need I say, this was not my idea of a fun time! It was traumatic and what does a six-year-old do when the hand is totally covered with these tiny crawling things that won’t shake off, no matter how hard you try?
Well I did the only thing that I knew what to do ~ I screamed and ran, and of course the hand came with me ~ it wasn’t going anywhere, neither were the creepy crawlies going away either. They just came along for the ride. Where to go and what to do? Well, thankfully at six years of age, I wasn’t far from the comfort of home and so the house was first choice, right to mom in the kitchen, crying through my fears and my tears! It was just like her to know how to make it all go away as she calmly took my wrist and guided my hand to the faucet at the kitchen sink where clean, fresh, running water washed the trauma of creepy crawlies away! It was then I just knew it was going to be ok. Just like that they were gone and my hand was clean and although my heart was still pounding, my ‘kid’ day became very pink again, just the way I liked it! Oh it left a horrible memory, but the fear was gone and you can be sure I stayed far away from the telephone pole for years. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t touch even it to this day, if given the chance. 😦 The memories are just too horrific. If only all the drama and trauma of our real life events and experiences could be so easily dispersed and made ok once again, wouldn’t life be ok after all? But they can’t and so we trudge through loading each difficult time on our shoulders just to make it to the next day.
I thought of that this morning as I thought of how our hearts can be so delighted with our joys and some days our walk with Christ can be so very pink, or so purple ~ or maybe bright, cheery yellow until something gets in the way, distracting us from the good things and then our minds wander, and our hearts follow and our hands get dirty and our hearts get soiled with sin and our day becomes shadowed with darkness and guilt ~ perhaps fear. Oh they’re not nice days ~ not nice days at all. As an adult, we may live there for a while under the guilt of it all, but sooner or later, the guilt becomes too much to manage and it’s not just our hand but our heart that needs cleansing! Where do we run for help? We run home to the only one who can take care of it ~ and it’s not mom this time, but it’s our Heavenly Father who can wash us clean and remove the stain, the guilt and the fear from our hands and the stain from our heart and soul. You see, His blood covers us for that and His graces graces us for that and His mercy pardons us for that, and His blood ~ ahh yes, His perfect, spotless blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He says it’s “ok” now, and we can go back to our pink or yellow or blue days where all is right with our world because all is right with our God.
Oh, the lessons of our childhood write stories on our hearts that shape our souls. No matter how traumatic yours was, and for whatever reason, it has moulded you into who you are and God had and still has a purpose in it for you. He uses each moment, whether good, bad or traumatic to shape us and bring us to this “now” moment, where we are today. Sometimes it’s in the college of hard knocks where we learn our most valuable lessons for life’s journey! Sometimes it’s in the kindergarten of simple things like a hand covered in creepy crawlies, so traumatic at the time, but so easily fixed under running water, that comes to mind ~ refreshing the soul, because in it there’s a lesson to be learned ~ a deep, spiritual lesson just for us, that we can glean from.
Ahhh yes, He fashions so much good from so much bad and that’s what He does ~ I love how He does it. I love how God takes all the bad that’s happened to us or our loved ones because of the sinful nature of the world and He recycles it to make it good and new and pink and clean and fresh and just right for the work that He has for us and the purpose that He has for us to fulfil. Take heart beautiful soul, God has you covered!
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 1 John 2: 1, 2
………………..(¯`•.•´¯) .……… .• . • . •°•.*.•°• . • . • . ..…(¯`•.¸.•°*°•. ✿ .•°*°•.¸.•´¯) •°•.•*~*.✿ I WiSh YoU ✿.*~*.•°•.• ….…(¯`* a BeAuTiFuL DaY ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ any color you wish *´¯). …………..•. • . •° ••°• •°•.º.•°••°• . • . • . ………………….° º ✿ º ° ……………………(¸.•´¯)
So many things don’t always turn out the way we think they should “when” we think they should. That doesn’t make our hope wrong or make it wrong to anticipate the hope of our heart. Nor does it give us the right to give up, or throw in the towel. Neither should “not receiving” what we desire shake our faith. Our faith is more than our circumstances. It’s more than our heart’s desire. It’s more than our successes and it’s more than the love of our life. Real faith is not merely receiving from God what we want, but it is accepting from God what He gives. When we can get to that point beautiful souls, When we can accept the disappointments as His appointments, then He can begin to show us His plan. Perhaps He’s just ushered you into the real place of His divine purpose. For that reason we must keep going!! We must persevere, keep going strong in the faith ~ strengthened in the Hope that we have in Christ. He is victorious and that victory is ours. Claim it my friend, even when you don’t feel it, or see it. He embraces us with grace for the moment, but that grace dispenses freely on the obedient who follow Him through those tough times.
To persevere means to stick it out until the end; in the Christian context, it means to hold onto your faith through thick and thin, in every trial, to the end of this earthly life. It is true that perseverance is not an easy assignment. In fact, throughout the Bible we see believers subjected to tests of their faith, some of which seem extraordinarily difficult. Abraham told to sacrifice his son, Daniel in the lions’ den, Joseph in prison and Jeremiah in the miry pit are all examples of extreme situations that called for huge faith in God on the part of these believers.
[Hebrews 10:36] “Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that He has promised.” It is not enough to have one moment of faith with no growth, no fruit, and no learning, because spiritual fruit is a vital ingredient and cannot be omitted. If we persevere in the faith, we remain in the will of God. Those who do His will, enter His kingdom (Matthew 7:21).
So as we move towards Palm Sunday our emphasis and focus is on the triumphal entry of our Lord riding into Jerusalem on the lowliness of a borrowed donkey! The event fulfilled an ancient prophecy prophesied back in Zechariah 9:9:
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
He was their King, but not a military King, arrayed in royal robes of silk and satin, purple or gold, rather He wore the common clothes of humility. His birth place ~ a stable and His bed ~ a feeding trough. His triumphant entry wasn’t mounted on a prancing steed of pride or a spectacular, show horse but rather He approached His ‘palm branch waving,” crowd of fans, on a borrowed donkey, as a lowly servant of God, coming only to seek, to save and to serve. This journey would end in death but the ultimate irony ~ Victory over it! That’s always God’s way ~ Good out of bad!
Christ didn’t come to make war with gunfire and bloodshed or to take by force as earthly kings do, but to win hearts by unconditional love, awesome mercy, amazing grace and His own shed blood and ‘self’ sacrifice for a world lost in wretched sin. He didn’t come to take people captive but to set them free; those bound tightly in their sin and on death row. He doesn’t rule a kingdom of mighty armies but His Kingdom is of Heavenly angels and weakened blood washed saints who have been refined in the fires of adversity and come forth as gold. Powerful, prayer warriors, who’ve been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, cleansed, forgiven and set free from the chains that bound them; they are those who’ve been purged in the fires of struggle, and trial and who have tasted the results of bad choices in the fast lane and on the downside, yet strengthened, quickened and renewed by them all at the same time. His saints and warriors know how to fight the good fight of faith by putting on the full armor of God in order to stand against the wiles and deceits of the enemy and in all faith, they know how to pray mighty prayers that move the hand of God upon our sin sick earth to see results for the glory of God’s Kingdom! He came not to take nations down but to heal their land through forgiveness and changed lives. He takes minds and renews. He takes lives and cleanses, setting them on the path of healing to new life in Christ. His message is not one of anger but of peace with God! A peace that’s not of this world:
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” John 14: 27:
Only a week after His triumphal entry, Christ carried His own cross to that Gethsemane Hill where He willingly laid down His life for the good of the world. He offered peace, but the majority didn’t get it, and the cross ruled as they nailed Him there ~ as we nailed Him there in those lonely moments, when God turned His back allowing the sin of the world to be laid on Him. It was there on that ugly yet beautiful cross that Christ took the sin of mankind upon Himself. Let your mind wander to that Hill, to the mercy cross! Let your heart follow to that place where justice and mercy meet; to that scandalous place of blood shed, horrendous horror, torture, humility and sacrificial servant hood to the ultimate degree! Yet against all odds, three days later, He rose again, defeating death, according to and fulfilling His Father’s will.
Meet Him there at the cross, for forgiveness and then look to His victory over death and the empty grave for hope and everlasting life beyond death!
One day He will rule the world in peace but until then, He still desires to make His triumphal entry into the individual hearts and souls of those that will receive Him; to set up His Kingdom of peace in the lives of human kind one by one and in so doing, heal the nations of the world one heart at a time, through cleansing and forgiveness, saving it and it’s people from it’s own sinful, self –destruction. He still offers peace but the majority just doesn’t get it!
His motive is salvation! His driving force forgiveness and healing! His message ~ unconditional love and His rule is peace! It’s simple yet many don’t get it! Have you got it?
♥✿♡✿♥¸.•°*”˜ ƸӜƷ˜”*°•ღ♥ღ♥ღ•°*”˜ ƸӜƷ ─ ▀██▀▀█▄───.───.────.───.────.─.█ ──██▄▄█▀.█▀.█▀█.█─█.▀█▀.█.█▀.█─█.█─ ──██▀▀█▄.█▀.█▀█.█▄█.─█─.█.█▀.█▄█.█▄ ─▄██▄▄█▀.▀▀.───.───.─▀─.─.█ .♥ Peace ♫ Love ♫ Joy ¨¯`♥ Freedom ♥..Forgiveness……Peace ………..•°*”˜ ƸӜƷ ─
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 