Month: October 2023

I have prayed for you , that your faith will not fail. Luke 22:32

The lessons I learned from my parents are endless, some better than others, but I have to say my Mama was a great believer in teaching us girls to attempt new and different things in our lives. There were countless times when I or my sisters (mostly me) attempted something new and would go to her with the words, “I can’t.” Her response was quick and always the same, “Well, you know can’t never could.

The expression “can’t never could” is postive thinking Southern style. It literally means that if you think you can’t, you won’t be able to accomplish something; but if you think you can, you will succeed. Whenever I found something that I thought was too diffictult and said things such as; I can’t learn to play the piano, I can’t get an A in Algebra, I can’t get into a big college, I can’t learn to cook, or I can’t sing in the choir, Mama was right there to make sure I knew can’t never could.

It is so easy to say I can’t and just move on; however, great things can be accomplished when we try. There are two things worth remembering when we think we can’t do something. First, God doesn’t waste anything that He created. Secondly, He doesn’t waste anything He can use for His good.

Years ago, the women at our church had women’s retreats off campus and usually brought in speakers and sometimes musicians for the program. There are several retreats which stand out in my mind, but the best one was when we had Mrs. Jeannette Cathy of Chick Fil A fame as our speaker. She arrived accompanied by her daughter, Trudy into a group of admiring women. Before she began her presentation, Mrs. Cathy admitted to us that she was not the speaker in the family and really was very nervous that night. In her sweet way she said, “I am not sure I can do this ladies, so every time you see me falter, just yell out, “Yes, you can!” Mrs. Cathy did a beautiful job that night, but there were many interruptions of “Yes, you can!” Each time she acknowledged the affirmation, and she just got stronger throughout her presentation. She turned can’t never could into yes, you can!

In this life, God has a way of equipping each of us for things that He has in mind. There are things that God has placed in each one of us that sometimes may have seemed to work against us while we were growing up! For instance, some of us enjoyed pouring over books and research. God can use that! Some of us were quick to confront and excited to run right at the enemy. God can use that. Some of us held on to ideas and pushed them like a pit bull! God can use that! He uses both the good and the bad qualities we have!

God works even when we think we just can’t do what He is asking of us. Here’s how God works. First, he seeks us out, then He prepares us, then He positions us, then He empowers us to do what He knows we can do most effectively. For instance, look at Peter. He had only one gear: wide open, and he was always in the middle of everything that was going on, but he wasn’t always on top of things. This man who ended up leading the church, first denied being a disciple of Jesus.

This week when we hear ourselves saying things like; I can’t make an impact in this world of today, I can’t do anything to help others, I can’t make time in my schedule to attend a small group, I can’t facilitate a small group or Bible Study, I can’t volunteer for a mission, or I can’t stand one more day of the emotional and physical pain, let’s remind ourselves that can’t never could and yes, we can!

Not only can God turn our lives and our “I can’ts” into “Yes, I cans,” but He can use us to turn the lives of others around as well! We never really know our own strength and possibilities until we hear someone remind us that can’t never could.

Sometimes we wonder how in the world we will ever get out of the mess we’ve made with bad decisions or mistakes and truthfully, maybe we can’t. The good news is that God can! Can’t never could, but with God, yes, we can!

He knew it was time to act. Exodus 2:25

One of my all time favorite movies is Sweet Home Alabama. I can identify with the characters, the southern small town atmosphere, the family, the friends, the love, and even the gossip. There was however, one line from the movie that I had never heard before. Melanie is defending her actions from high school, and she says, “Like I could tip a cow by myself!” I began to wonder exactly what that might mean!

In researching the phrase, there is actually such a thing. Tipping a cow refers to the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment. The practice is generally considered an urban legend and feats are thought of as tall tales.

The idea of a tipping over a cow for entertainment seems excessively mean spirited, but right now, it seems like that is exactly what is happening in our world and especially in the Middle Eastern countries. The world has been blissfully enjoying a semblance of peace, and suddenly terrorists have tipped us over while inflicting pain, trauma, and death on unsuspecting people.

In the midst of it all, we find ourselves much like the Israelites who continued to groan under their burden of slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God. God heard their groaning, and he remembered his covenant promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act.

Just like the Israelites who thought life couldn’t get worse and then, Pharoah withdrew their straw and ordered them to produce the same daily quota of brick, we can’t believe the news which gets worse every day!! They reached their tipping point, and we are feeling much the same. We feel helpless and powerless to control things just as they did.

When we reach that tipping point, sometimes there are things that might help. First, if we are in a small group of friends or church members, it might help to share our feelings It can be therapeutic and healing to openly discuss the sense of helplessness and disbelief we are feeling. A member of our small group recently shared with me a pocket cross that he had made out of wood from an olive tree from the Holy Land. I carry it with me now everywhere, and it is comforting just to have a tangible symbol to remind us that God is still there!

Next, there comes a time when we just cry out to God. Just like He saw the Israelites struggling just to get through another day, He sees the people in the Middle East who are doing the same. Sometimes we talk to everybody except God. Prayer should be our first option not our last resort. David said in Psalms 118:5, I called on the Lord in distress; The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place. David’s prayers got him out of a tight spot and into God’s spot.

Finally, God will always keep His promise. God works according to His plan, not ours. He has not forgotten the people or their struggles. Our prayers will be answered in His time, so our job is just to keep praying and believing in Him.

When we reach our tipping point, we must make a decision to give up on our own strength and wisdom to solve our worldly problems or deliver us from them. We need instead to declare our reliance on Him and expresss our faith in His capabilities to step in and effectuate a turn for the better.

As we continue to watch and pray, we need to remember that God is there to catch us when we have reached our tipping point.

Great peace have those who love thy law, and nothing shall hurt them! Psalm 119:165

When I think back on the early days of parenting, and the early days of teaching Kindergarten, I remember using the words, where does it hurt? countless times. Children have a habit of exaggerating physical hurts, and it is always important in order to assess the situation to find out exactly where they are hurting in order to help.

Last week I had an unexpected conversation with a lady who exercises in the pool sometimes when I am there. This lady came to America years ago as the friend of a Persian princess whose family fled the country before it became Iran. I don’t know her well, but what I do know from my own observation and experience is that she always appears very self sufficient, she is extremely opinionated, and very out spoken. I have since learned that my assessment was a bit skewed.

Our conversation began the other day when just the two of us were in the pool, and she suddenly asked,
“Diana, where do you hurt?” I was confused at first, but then I realized that she was asking what part of my body hurts since I’m always in the pool. I explained that my back bothers me, and then asked her, “Where do you hurt?” She told me that her knee hurts, and that she has upcoming knee replacement surgery. We bonded immediately as Dr. Hanna is also her doctor and Randy and I know him well!

As we talked, I asked her who would care for her during her recovery, as I knew her husband had died several years ago. She teared up, touched her chest symbolizing her heart, and said, “I am not sure. My daughters both live around here, but neither one care about me.” The realization hit me that her hurt didn’t lie in her physical pain alone, but rather in her emotional one. I put my hand on her shoulder, hugged her, and said that I would pray for her. She blew me a kiss, put both hands together as if praying and bowed slightly as is the custom in her country. My initial assessment of her just took a huge turn!

Sometimes it’s not the physical hurt in our lives that pains us, but the emotional hurts we all bear. The atrocities of the last week have left us all hurting in different ways. We hurt for the families of the hostages, we hurt for the senseless loss of life, we hurt as we face helplessness and utter bewilderment. We hurt when we see others worn down by poverty and never seeming to find relief. We hurt when we see ourselves or others shackled by an incurable physical disability. We hurt when we find ourselves completely alone and separated from those we love forcing us to face the trauma of life alone.

This world during times of adversity tends to dethrone God who is the living, guiding, sovereign of the universe and relegate Him to a lesser role of an inanimate dead abstraction. We forget that He is present and working in all the hurts of this life. The hurts could be removed from many of our agonizing trials if we could look upon them as Job learned to do “seeing God in everything”.

Many of us have experienced hurts in our lives. We have lost people who were close to us, we have experienced hurt from some person or situation, or we’ve been hurt in some other way. When Paul became a Christian, he was ostracized by his peers because he was once a persecutor of the church, and now, as a Christian, he was looked upon as the enemy. He experienced hurt, but he was never totally alone, he had Jesus and his new Christian friends.

Everyone has different hurts, but it can help to focus on the positive things that are still in our lives. For example, we might not be able to do all the things we once did physically, but spiritually, on the inside we are stronger and able to do more for others than we once did. There might be a physical decline, but because of Christ we are on a spiritual incline. If we switch our game plan, the new focus can provide relief from the hurt.

Wherever we hurt, don’t lose heart, don’t give into despair, and don’t give up! The hurts that come our way in life don’t define who we are. God and others will be there to help us through them. When life hurts, Jesus can make it all better!

This week let’s keep in our thoughts and prayers all those who are hurting whether close or far away.

Brothers and sisters I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. Philippians 3:3

People across the world have celebrated Columbus’s voyage since the colonial period when he historically set sail in August of 1492. Columbus intended to chart a course to China, India, and the renowned gold and spice islands of Asia, but instead he landed in the Bahamas. This landing made him the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up new colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century. In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed this discovery a federal holiday.

Columbus and his three ships made the non stop voyage on the high seas of the Atlantic and sailed between 2800-3100 nautical miles. When one considers that there were no emergency radios, no radar, no weather forecast, and no communication other than person to person available, it’s hard to imagine the endless days and nights out on the ocean having no idea what might await. I have trouble sailing in the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of hours, so I can only imagine how long the days and nights became for these sailors as they lived through the wind and waves they must have faced.!

There is an interesting account of the journey in a work entitled, Diary of Christopher Columbus’ First Voyage to America written by Bartolome de la Casas. The frst entry was posted on August 3, 1492, the day of his departure from Spain. It reads, “We departed Friday the third of August in the year of 1492 from the Bar of Saltes at the eighth hour. We went south with a strong sea breeze 60 miles, which is 15 leagues, until sunset; afterward by the southwest and south by west which was the route for the Canaries. and on this day we sailed on. As the journal continues, the most intriguing thing is that at the end of almost every day, the final words are, And on this day, we sailed on.

Some days nothing happened except the monotony of bobbing up and down on the seas. Some days the storms came, and the ship took on water. Some days the crew turned on each other and fought. Some days one of the ships had mechanical issues. Some days the sea was calm and peaceful, and there was rest. Through it all, they sailed on. Columbus had a vision, and he and his crew persevered through hardships, danger, difficulty, boredom, and disappointments.

Some days, we, as Christians feel a lot like Columbus and his crew because we seem to face a lot of fighting and struggling along our way. The scripture above reminds us that no matter what we face, we can’t give up, but rather we must sail on!

God is looking for committment, perseverance, and faithfulness as we sail on in this life. We will encounter persecution, but we sail on. We will encounter ciriticism, but we sail on. We will be bored, but we sail on. We will encounter danger on our way, but we sail on. We will face betrayal, but we sail on. We will frequently feel like the devil is winning, but we sail on.

I can’t think of anyone in the Bible apart from Jesus who lived a life of more gratitude than Paul the Apostle. He sailed on when he was imprisoned, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, robbed, abandoned, and the list goes on. However, when he was about to die, he wrote the young preacher Timothy, these words: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, and I have kept the faith.”

Some days when we are beaten down and we write in our spiritual journal, the only thing we can say is, today,we sailed on. We didn’t discover any new land, we didn’t get rich, we were scick, we had a flat tire, the house flooded, we heard that someone talked about us, someone blamed us, someone betlittled us, someone lied to us, but we sailed on.

It is during these times when God is using our circumstances to build character in us. He wants us to be faithful and sail on during the times when He is silent. During those days when we feel like God has shut down heaven and there’s not enough money to buy an answer to a prayer, just sail on one more day!

Mary Ann Baxter experienced some of the bad times that all Christians go through and it caused her to ask, “What have I done to deserve this?” Through the time where she sailed on and waited on God to answer her, she felt the storms that had been raging start to subside, and she felt a peace. She was able to write three stanzas and a chorus for the beloved hymn Peace Be Still.

The winds and the waves shall obey My will, Peace Be Still. Whether the wrath of the storm tossed sea, or demons or men or whatever it be, No water can swallow the shp where lies, the Master of ocean and earth and skies. They all shall sweetly obey thy will, Peace Be Still.

In the words of Christopher Columbus, And on this day – we sail on!

He never lost sight of where he has headed. Hebrews 12:2 The Message

Most of us know someone in our lives, maybe even ourselves, who have had cataract surgery. The one comment I hear without fail from these folks is, “I can’t believe how well I can see the details and color of the leaves! I had forgotten how beautiful they are!” What a miracle to be able to see the world as God made it again!

When we let our vision go uncorrected we find ourselves with a skewed outlook on so many things in this life from the beauty of nature to the beauty of life in general. The story is told of a man who was getting his windshield washed at a filling station (so we know this story is old). When the attendant finished, the man complained that he had done a terrible job and wanted it done again. The attendant obliged, but still the frustrated man complained that the windshield was not clean. The man’s wife who was sitting next to him, reached over, took his glasses, wiped them, and gave them back to him. The attendant had been doing his job all along, it was the man who had the vision problem. He had uncorrected vision.

Spiritually speaking, our vision determines what we see and how we see it. When our vision is uncorrected we can see jealousy and envy and become resentful of the blessings of others. When we see only fear and unbelief, and we limit God and what He can do for us. When we see only selfishness, we tend to put ourselves first and others suffer. When we see only negativity and cynicism, people avoid us because of our attitude.

The Bible says that “Because Jesus never lost sight of where he was headed, He could put up with anything along the way.” He had a vision and a passion. It is that vision which fuels our passion. When we are dealing with an uncorrected vision, we sometimes find our passion waning. Passion is spiritual energy, and without it we can become limp and bland.

Before God called the prophet Isaiah to a position of leadership, He corrected his vision. Israel’s constant rebellion was putting them in jeopardy with God, and they needed a leader with a clear vision. First, God allowed Isaiah to see clearly His glory and power. The same thing applies to us in this life. We will need a vision of this glory and limitless power in order to complete the job that God has called us to do. It will take a lot more than a job description and some basic skills. It will take corrected vision!

The second thing God did was to correct Isaiah’s vision of himself. God wanted Isaiah to know, and he wants us to know that we are no better than the people we are called to reach. Until we can see ourselves realistically, honestly, and humbly in relation to God and others, our mission, whatever it may be, won’t succeed.

Finally, God responded to Isaiah’s humility by sending an angel to touch his lips with purifying fire and say, “Your sin is taken away.” God doesn’t call us to be perfect, but when we have corrected vision, He rewards our efforts with success regardless of the odds! Our sins are taken away!

Just like the man needed to have his glasses cleaned in order to correct his vision, sometimes we all need to wipe away the contamination all around us which can cloud our heart and mind. We all need to renew our passion. Once we line up our passion with God’s plan, there will be no stopping us!

According to mythology, when St. Patrick was a missionary in Ireland in the fifth century, King Logaire of Tara decreed that no one was allowed to light any fires until a pagan festival was begun by the lighting of a fire on Slane Hill. In a move of defiance against this pagan ritual, St. Patrick did light a fire, and rather than execute him, the king was so impressed with his devotion that he let Patrick continue his missionary work. Three centuries later a monk named Dallien Forgall wrote the poem which we know as Be Thou My Vision. Mary Elizabeth Byrne and Eleanor Hull comiserated to write the text and music of our well known hymn. It is a hymn and prayer that in every moment of our lives, God would be our vision above all else.

Be Thou My Vision O Lord of my heart; naught be all else to me save that thou art – thou my best thought by day or by night; waking or sleeping, they presence my light.