Frozen Pipes are not just aggravating but can cause serious consequences. Mississippi is not used to long bouts of freezing weather and our lack of preparedness was evident this winter as the City of Jackson had over 180 water main lines burst causing schools, offices, restaurants, and in some cases hospitals to stop or limit their services. As the city came to a near shutdown of activities many were asking how this could have been prevented. The only answer given is that the pipes were old and needed to be replaced. It appeared there was little thought given to this fact until the pipes broke! Some felt the disaster happened because problems were ignored until it was too late. There is a life-lesson in that!!!
Recently, I went for a wellness check-up…I was feeling great…but the results showed a little build up in an artery that could eventually cause heart problems. I was shocked!!! I thought I was doing fine…my blood pressure was low and things were great but a check-up revealed a potential problem. Hearts and pipes are not much different I discovered…they both need care to function properly and that goes for the spiritual heart as well. Many of us ignore this heart until disaster strikes and it breaks with an outflow of pain and waves of desperation. We often live life…going to church, singing the same songs and doing it all by rote but have not checked the heart pipes for a slow freezing. Having lived in the country for a while, I learned that pipes are less likely to freeze if there was water movement within…thus we kept faucets dripping during freezing weather. Movement tends to keep all kind of things from freezing up but one must be diligent in keeping the movement going.
The Bible speaks often of living water and living water is not stagnant! This should give us a clue of what is important to a vibrant Christian lifestyle. Since the heart (both physical and spiritual) is hidden from our eyes and the eyes of others it is easy to ignore possible problems until the “pipes burst!” When we go to pieces over something that is truly minor it might be that there had been no spiritual movement in our hearts for quite a while. I understand this for there was a time I coasted spiritually letting my prayer life and Bible study go to the back burner. Today, I only need a little nudge to get me back on track but I remember a time when I ignored my heart and within a year found it completely frozen; it was hard and unmoving. That hardness resulted in a tough and cold attitude toward God, the church, and folks in general. I had ceased to show any emotion and spent many months not shedding a single tear yet I continued to go to church and kept up the façade so others wouldn’t know but underneath I was in a spiritually dangerous place. One day I came upon a scripture that brought me hope: Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and will put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a new a heart of flesh!” It was not until then that I could really put a finger on what was wrong… I had become hard-hearted…or frozen. I began to pray for that fleshly heart. God answered and when my heart finally broke all the anger and bitterness flooded out until I was completely spent. Then the tears came and that release allowed my new heart to function correctly again.
Maybe you are struggling with some heart pipe problems, too. I am here as a testimony of how good it is to keep the flow of the living water running through the veins. Jesus promised the Living Water. Drink deeply of His water and I promise your pipes will flow freely…even when things are freezing all around. And by the way, these pipes never get too old!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Lions, and Tiger and Dares, Oh My!
For the last months the news has been inundated with Tiger Woods and his numerous affairs…if you haven’t heard any of it, you have been in a third world country with no electricity. I would have hoped we would have left him alone to work out his personal life but since that isn’t the case I will use his situation as a warning to me about how I too could plummet into sin. I am not immune so I must be aware of how satan works!
How did Tiger fall? The same way we all do…with one little compromise. No thinking person dives into sinful behavior full force, it is small steps; like the popular Christian song says, “it’s a slow fade.” We start with one small compromise and soon find ourselves fully engaged in an affair, fixing the books, or other equally heinous activity we never dreamed we would be involved. The Bible is NOT silent on this. One of the greatest men ever to serve God discovered this; his name was King David. We find his story in II Samuel 11-13. How did this “man after God’s own heart” fall? It was with a single step…not being where he should have been, on the battlefield with the rest of his troops. Our fall often starts when we allow ourselves to be in situations that are not “right”-- engaging in relationships that have consequences beyond what we ever imagined. Christians are not immune! Many are caught in compromising situations and just as Tiger Woods, lose their families. It all started with a lunch or a phone call where the lines of right and wrong were blurred. Excuses like, “I was ministering to him/her.” Or “He/She needed a friend because his/her wife/husband doesn’t understand.” These excuses are the foothold that satan looks for to destroy the witness of a Christian.
All of us have times when our marriages are not going great guns and that is the exact time when satan, a roaring lion, pounces. He whispers, “You deserve more.” And then someone comes along who looks and acts like just what we need. Satan had it all planned…for your destruction! What begins as an innocent lunch ends in a bitter divorce. Lives are wrecked so we offer excuses…Tiger’s excuse was he was bored with his wife and he felt that gave him permission. We need to be aware of when we are “excusing” sin in our lives. Believe me, I know…I have been tempted and had it not been for my godly accountability partner, I shutter to think where my life would now be. Friend, we need boundaries to keep us from the wiles of the lion who is seeking to devour us, our families, and our ministries.
David could see sin in other’s lives but was hesitant to admit it in his own! We are often like that and so we need a “Nathan” in our lives…someone who will tell us the truth and to whom we will listen. When we engage in sinful behavior, the last thing we want is someone pointing it out but that is exactly what we need if we are to gain victory over sin.
David often told the story of killing a lion with his bare hands when he was younger but as he grew spiritually complacent, an even greater lion overtook him, resulting in actions, which David never dreamed he would participate. Many of us have been strong in the faith and have slain many lions but we have become complacent…our walk is not as close as it used to be and that is a dangerous place to be. We need to get back on our own battlefield against our great enemy. We need to stay fresh! May I present you with a dare for this New Year? Find someone to whom you will be accountable to for your actions, to whom you give permission to snatch you from potentially dangerous situations. We are in a great battle and we need each other to keep us “honest!”
I pray for each of you this year that you will remain faithful! Use this thought: There is a Lion…remember Tiger…and take the Dare! Oh, my. Victory is in our reach!
How did Tiger fall? The same way we all do…with one little compromise. No thinking person dives into sinful behavior full force, it is small steps; like the popular Christian song says, “it’s a slow fade.” We start with one small compromise and soon find ourselves fully engaged in an affair, fixing the books, or other equally heinous activity we never dreamed we would be involved. The Bible is NOT silent on this. One of the greatest men ever to serve God discovered this; his name was King David. We find his story in II Samuel 11-13. How did this “man after God’s own heart” fall? It was with a single step…not being where he should have been, on the battlefield with the rest of his troops. Our fall often starts when we allow ourselves to be in situations that are not “right”-- engaging in relationships that have consequences beyond what we ever imagined. Christians are not immune! Many are caught in compromising situations and just as Tiger Woods, lose their families. It all started with a lunch or a phone call where the lines of right and wrong were blurred. Excuses like, “I was ministering to him/her.” Or “He/She needed a friend because his/her wife/husband doesn’t understand.” These excuses are the foothold that satan looks for to destroy the witness of a Christian.
All of us have times when our marriages are not going great guns and that is the exact time when satan, a roaring lion, pounces. He whispers, “You deserve more.” And then someone comes along who looks and acts like just what we need. Satan had it all planned…for your destruction! What begins as an innocent lunch ends in a bitter divorce. Lives are wrecked so we offer excuses…Tiger’s excuse was he was bored with his wife and he felt that gave him permission. We need to be aware of when we are “excusing” sin in our lives. Believe me, I know…I have been tempted and had it not been for my godly accountability partner, I shutter to think where my life would now be. Friend, we need boundaries to keep us from the wiles of the lion who is seeking to devour us, our families, and our ministries.
David could see sin in other’s lives but was hesitant to admit it in his own! We are often like that and so we need a “Nathan” in our lives…someone who will tell us the truth and to whom we will listen. When we engage in sinful behavior, the last thing we want is someone pointing it out but that is exactly what we need if we are to gain victory over sin.
David often told the story of killing a lion with his bare hands when he was younger but as he grew spiritually complacent, an even greater lion overtook him, resulting in actions, which David never dreamed he would participate. Many of us have been strong in the faith and have slain many lions but we have become complacent…our walk is not as close as it used to be and that is a dangerous place to be. We need to get back on our own battlefield against our great enemy. We need to stay fresh! May I present you with a dare for this New Year? Find someone to whom you will be accountable to for your actions, to whom you give permission to snatch you from potentially dangerous situations. We are in a great battle and we need each other to keep us “honest!”
I pray for each of you this year that you will remain faithful! Use this thought: There is a Lion…remember Tiger…and take the Dare! Oh, my. Victory is in our reach!
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Hey Stranger!
So how is the first week of 2010 going for you? I am still wondering if I am going to say, “twenty-ten” or “two-thousand ten,” but I digress!! I spent the first few days of this year at our son and daughter-in-law’s home. They have two little boys who are an absolute hoot! The older one (nearly 3) is asking some questions I need to ask myself more often, like, “Mom, what does God do?” The more I think about that question, the more I find comfort in the answer! It is a deep question and one that requires time to consider.
Some would say that God created everything and now just sits back and leaves us to our own devices. Others believe He died in the last century and so doesn’t do anything anymore…that we are in charge. Still others believe God is always trying to punish and keep us from “fun!” So, what does God do? To answer that we cannot rely on our feelings or emotions…we must look into His Word…we find that He created but He is very much involved with His creation. He desires relationship with us! He loves us…He protects us…but He also hates things that will hurt and destroy us…He judges the unrighteous things out of His absolute holiness. A great summary of what God does can be found in Isaiah 40:21-31. (Please take time to read this!) In short…He is God!
But knowing who God is and what He does is just academic if we don’t live out the facts of what we know! Because God is who is says He is, we should live differently…we live in victory even when things are falling down around us because He says that He will never leave us, or forsake us. God knows that we are going to have struggles in our lives…Jesus said it best when he said, “In this world you are going to have troubles, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” John 16:33 He has warned us but given assurance at the same time.
Our daughter-in-law was doing some Christmas shopping with her oldest child and while standing at the counter paying for her purchases, she warned him of not leaving her side since there were “strangers” all around who might want to hurt him. When she felt that her message was received and understood, she paid for her purchases and they continued to the next store. Holding to his mom’s hand, William entered the next store, looked up at the first person he saw and said, “Hey, stranger!!” and waved happily! Now, while we might think he didn’t understand the warning, what William understood was the very thing God wanted us to understand…yes, there are going to be things that will hurt us in this life…they are all around us…but as long as we are holding on to the hand of the one who loves us most, we can wave and smile in the face of it all.
I have thought of this in my own life and for this New Year, I want to live in victory. I don’t want to cower in fear or despair about the world’s situations. I want to hold tightly to His hand and when those things happen, I want to wave and say, “Hey, recession!” “Hey, sickness!” “Hey, world leaders!” I want to live in the assurance that He is there with me…for that is what He promised. I don’t want to despair as the disciples did when they were in the boat and a storm came. They just knew that Jesus didn’t care because He was asleep but the fact was, they were okay! Jesus, the one who created the sea, was in control even if it didn’t look like He was! The words Jesus spoke to them should ring in our ears when we are losing confidence in our storm, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Mark 4:40
So, in this year, (20-10; 2000-10???) I am going to resolve to hold tightly to His hand, knowing He loves me with an everlasting love. I resolve to walk closely by His side, listening to His voice! I resolve to, when faced with the “strangers” in life, to lift my hands in praise and shout, “Hey stranger! My God is an Awesome God!!”
Some would say that God created everything and now just sits back and leaves us to our own devices. Others believe He died in the last century and so doesn’t do anything anymore…that we are in charge. Still others believe God is always trying to punish and keep us from “fun!” So, what does God do? To answer that we cannot rely on our feelings or emotions…we must look into His Word…we find that He created but He is very much involved with His creation. He desires relationship with us! He loves us…He protects us…but He also hates things that will hurt and destroy us…He judges the unrighteous things out of His absolute holiness. A great summary of what God does can be found in Isaiah 40:21-31. (Please take time to read this!) In short…He is God!
But knowing who God is and what He does is just academic if we don’t live out the facts of what we know! Because God is who is says He is, we should live differently…we live in victory even when things are falling down around us because He says that He will never leave us, or forsake us. God knows that we are going to have struggles in our lives…Jesus said it best when he said, “In this world you are going to have troubles, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” John 16:33 He has warned us but given assurance at the same time.
Our daughter-in-law was doing some Christmas shopping with her oldest child and while standing at the counter paying for her purchases, she warned him of not leaving her side since there were “strangers” all around who might want to hurt him. When she felt that her message was received and understood, she paid for her purchases and they continued to the next store. Holding to his mom’s hand, William entered the next store, looked up at the first person he saw and said, “Hey, stranger!!” and waved happily! Now, while we might think he didn’t understand the warning, what William understood was the very thing God wanted us to understand…yes, there are going to be things that will hurt us in this life…they are all around us…but as long as we are holding on to the hand of the one who loves us most, we can wave and smile in the face of it all.
I have thought of this in my own life and for this New Year, I want to live in victory. I don’t want to cower in fear or despair about the world’s situations. I want to hold tightly to His hand and when those things happen, I want to wave and say, “Hey, recession!” “Hey, sickness!” “Hey, world leaders!” I want to live in the assurance that He is there with me…for that is what He promised. I don’t want to despair as the disciples did when they were in the boat and a storm came. They just knew that Jesus didn’t care because He was asleep but the fact was, they were okay! Jesus, the one who created the sea, was in control even if it didn’t look like He was! The words Jesus spoke to them should ring in our ears when we are losing confidence in our storm, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith? Mark 4:40
So, in this year, (20-10; 2000-10???) I am going to resolve to hold tightly to His hand, knowing He loves me with an everlasting love. I resolve to walk closely by His side, listening to His voice! I resolve to, when faced with the “strangers” in life, to lift my hands in praise and shout, “Hey stranger! My God is an Awesome God!!”
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