Changing One Life, Reaching Many
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Author: Shannon H. |
The Broken Road....
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08/26/2008 |
And as He was leaving Jericho, a blind man named Bartimaeus, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, have mercy on me!" Many were telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, And Jesus stopped and said, "Call him here." So they called the blind man, saying; He is calling for you." And answering him, Jesus said, "What do you want Me to do for you?" And the blind man said to Him, “ I want to see again!" And Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road. Mark 10:46 Beautiful One; “What is the Truth You Know, For the Trouble You Face?” We are all traveling on a road to somewhere but what happens when the road you’re on is broken, discombobulated, pot holes are everywhere, what happens when your road is closed? What happens when you realize that the road you’re on is going in circles leading you back to the same place and you find yourself stuck? Maybe you started out at a good pace, making good time, plans were made but somewhere along the way, because of something, you hit a bump in the road and now you’re no longer moving, you’re just sitting on the broken road. Others are on the road with you but they are just passing you by, they are coming and going but you, you’re just sitting, shrugging your shoulder’s and asking” WHY”. But the truth is; someone else could take the hand you’ve been dealt, AND WIN WITH IT! Better yet, SO CAN YOU!!!! Beautiful One, the trials and hardships we face can either define our faith or destroy it. If we are not careful to keep our eyes on the Lord then before we know it, we will have lost our sight and we’re not just sitting anymore, now we’re sitting blinded on the road. We can’t see what’s ahead; all we are left with is the dark memory of what the road we traveled on brought us to. One thing about Bartimaeus is; at one point he had vision, he told Jesus “I want to see again”, but somewhere on his broken road, he lost it, he got hit by adversity, so he just sat down and settled for survival. Instead of stepping on ground, he sat on some; he became a borrower, not a lender, he become the tail instead of the head, no vision, no movement, just survival. At some point he settled for what is, instead of, what is to come. Beautiful One, are you sitting, blinded on the road? Well today the Lord is calling for you, get up and tell him what you need from him. Bartimaeus did, He was tired of sitting on the road, he was tired of not being able to see what others could, he was tired of surviving, this was his chance to leap over the potholes and get back into the game. I am wondering, are you tired of just surviving, just tired of sitting blinded and stuck, wishing things were different for you? It’s time to get up from where you’re at, for the Lord is calling and He is asking you what he did of Bartimaeus; “what do you want me to do for you?” Maybe you don’t have parents, HE is a Father to the fatherless, no husband or distant one at best, HE is your husband, you are his bride, your child ran off, BUT while they are a long way off He sees them and is running to them, you lost your job; He is El Shaddai, your provider who opens the door for a better one, sick in your body, HE is your great physician and by HIS strips you are healed, Is your mind troubled; for HE will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon HIM, friends have forsaken you; HE is the friend that sticks closer than any brother, lost your name; HE is your kinsman redeemer and HE gives you a new one…. What is it that you need from Him? All you have to do is ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you, and you like Bartimaeus by stepping UP to Faith, will receive your sight again and get back to following the Lord. So you hit a road block, maybe the detour was long, it doesn’t matter; forgetting what is behind, reaching towards what is ahead, we press on toward the mark for it is a high call and from where you’re at, there is no where else to go but UP! Beautiful One, don’t forget, that HE himself will bind up the broken hearted and give sight to the blind, it is HE that sets the captives free, HE will give you a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness and He will proclaim the year of the Lords favor upon your life ….and HE will do it all On The Broken Road.…. Beautiful One, Just Believe, because HE IS the Truth You Know, For the Trouble You Face….. |
Rise Up and Build....
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08/26/2008 |
Recently the Lord has placed the word Navigate on my heart. Everywhere I go whether it is driving on the road and a truck in front of me has the word Navigate on the back of it or opening a magazine at work and there is a whole page with a compass and the word Navigate in it, to even walking downstairs in the morning while the house is quiet to open my Bible and there it is again saying in bold letters Navigate. So upon discerning the signs that the Lord has something to say, I further look into what Navigate means. The dictionary says it this way” to sail over, on, or through - to make one's way over or through. To make ones way over or through, that is a very interesting definition considering that in the Christian life many of the trials we endure are usually won by going through them to get over them. I once heard a wise person say, the only way out is through. Anything that we are not willing to walk through we cannot overcome. I have come to grasp that to truly know triumph one must first know trouble. Why do we lose sight of the fact that Jesus had to die in order to be resurrected? Night always comes before the day dawns, and to be victorious one must first have something to victor over. Nehemiah was a man who didn’t allow his circumstance to defeat him or persuade him into defeat. Nehemiah saw a problem; the city walls were broke down and instead of sitting around and being discouraged about it and agreeing with the problem by just talking about how terrible it was, he took action. He used his position with the king as an influence to find favor and rally support to fulfill the burden God placed in his heart. Nehemiah didn’t just want to do something, he actually did do something. He didn’t just think about it, he did as he thought. I wonder how much we could actually get done if we had this same attitude. I wonder how many lives we could touch if we would just lose our appetite for thinking and just did something. How many lives could we touch by just touching one life? It says in my Bible that anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Didn’t Jesus say to count the cost of following him that in order to find our life we must first lose it? How many times have we steered the ship and ended up drifting so far from our destination? How many times have we pushed the Lord the Captain of our life out of the way and taken that little rudder and charted our own course because we didn’t want the boat to rock, the waves were scary and the water seeped into our ship? How many times have we lost focus on the fact that he didn’t place us in our jobs or in people’s lives for money and comfort but for influence, how many of us have the ear of a king and we fail to speak in it? I believe that the Lord wants to say that He has a charted course for each of us, He has our life mapped out from beginning to end, the Lord recently told me, “ No man can thwart my plans, not even you” ouch that hurt, I didn’t realize that somehow I was foolish enough to think that I am powerful enough to mess up Gods plan for me, oh I know I get in the way, but God is much bigger and stronger than I and He knows exactly how to turn this ship around. After Nehemiah went to the king and found favor to go about the plans he had to rebuild, he then was joined by others who were inspired to follow him in his work; “so they said, let us rise up and build.” then they set their hand to do this good work. “ I think it is time to follow the direction the Lord has placed in our hearts, it is time to rise up from these ashes of mediocrity and complacency, self doubt and unbelief and build up the Kingdom of God and set our hand to do this good work. I heard a wonderful person once say; everything you need is in the house. I guess I could reword that and say everything we need is on the boat. God has already provided all the favor, strength, fortitude, creativity, blessing, and purpose we need, He has set the course, mapped the way out for us, we will have to go though whatever storms He has allowed to come before us, knowing that when the storm wanes He has a beautiful rainbow awaiting us, wanting us to trust Him the whole ride, even if He is resting while we are not, trusting that the trials and hardships are meant to define our faith not destroy it. Navigate- to make ones way through or over. And Jesus said unto them; let us go over to the other side. Mark 4:35 |
It's Not Over....
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08/26/2008 |
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." When Jesus saw her weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked. John 11:32-34 Beautiful One, No matter what you are facing today, no matter what it looks like or how long you have struggled, know this; “IT’S NOT OVER!” There are times in our lives that we will come face to face with pain. I’m talking about real pain, the kind of pain that you don’t ever think you will recover from, pain that grips your heart and confuses your mind, the kind of pain that makes you question everyone and everything, including yourself and God. Pain comes in many forms; it doesn’t favor any one person, gender, race, or social group. The truth is; if there is air in your lungs and you are on this earth, you will be confronted by pain. Some of us have known more pain than others, some of us have more to overcome than others but in the end, does it really matter? Pain is pain and when it grips your very soul, it can be the most paralyzing, overwhelming, hopeless feeling one could experience. I may not know your name, I may not know exactly what you’ve been through, but the Father told me to tell you-“It’s Not Over!” You might be in the place where the odds are against you, the battle may have worn you out, the enemy might be doing a victory dance, but- “It’s Not Over!” Beautiful One, the above verse gives us more than we realize about the heart of God and about pain. The Bible says that when Mary reached the place where Jesus was she fell down and cried out “Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Here is what she was really saying; “Lord, where were you, why didn’t you do anything, how come you let this happen?” Mary was immobilized by her pain and her disappointment was obvious; where was God when she needed him? Have you ever asked God that question? Have you ever been in so much pain, hoping the Lord would show up and save the day only to be disappointed and the outcome you feared came upon you? Beautiful One, no one likes to admit their doubt and disappointment with the Lord, no one, but in order to grasp the full measure of God, we need to be real for a moment, pain and confusing times do come as we walk with the Lord, they just do, for His ways are not our ways and every way to a mans heart seems right, but it is the purpose of the Lord that prevails. The conflict is part of the plan, God is not upset that we question Him, God understands our struggles, and through the pain and tears, He always shows us things we knew not of and He always comes through, in the end, when we look back, we find, He was right there. Pain blinds the eye and pierces the heart and if we are not honest with where we’re at, we will unknowingly view life through the lens of pain and it will effect what we believe God to be. When Jesus saw Mary’s tears, when He heard her subtle disbelief and disappointment, He didn’t scold her, or walk away from her, He became deeply troubled in His own Spirit and He asked her “where have you laid him?” What Christ was saying to her was; “ take me to the place you stopped believing in ME”, Christ told Mary then and is beckoning YOU now, " show ME the tomb you buried your hopes and dreams of something better in, take me to that place in your life that destroyed you and you silently gave up, take me to the place that you accepted as dead and allow me to breathe life into it again.” Beautiful One, tough times never last BUT TOUGH PEOPLE DO! God sees your tears and hears your cry, when YOU hurt, HE hurts, HE weeps when YOU weep, but HE remembers what we tend to forget, and that is; the situation you are facing, the pain you are in will not end up for your destruction, BUT for the Glory of God. Beautiful One, Mary was just like us, she was a believer, she loved the Lord but adversity and pain came knocking on her door and when she cried out for help and when it didn’t come the way she wanted it to, her pain magnified, she questioned everything she knew and she voiced it to her Lord, she was real, she didn’t hide and act like she was ok, she questioned God and God met her right where she was at, in her pain and HE did exceedingly, abundantly, more than she had asked, thought or imagined He would do. At the end of her story- Christ came through! And He will do the same for YOU…… Pain is hard, it hurts, it wounds us in ways we never imagined possible but in the end, God will work it together for our good and for His Glory. Beautiful One Hold On, Just Believe because He is never early, He is never late, HE is always right on time... And....It’s Not Over! |
Somewhere Along The Way....
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08/26/2008 |
You’ve seen them, they are in the alleys, they are on the street corners and at most freeway frontage roads. Most of the time you don’t pay them much attention but when you do, it’s usually because they have made contact with you in some way, either by waving you down, outright speaking to you or just being the silent communicator that makes you uncomfortable with their sign that reads “ will work for food”. They are the homeless, they are the forgotten and displaced, they are the poor, they are the men, women and yes even children that can incite fury and compassion all at the same time and they are among us always. Whether we see them or not, they are there. They are the lost wanderers on this earth, somewhere along they way they didn’t find their value, somewhere along the way they weren’t shown any worth and somewhere along the way, they have settled and succumbed to being less than what they were created for. Somewhere along the way they were somebody’s child, someone’s husband or wife, someone’s mom or dad, maybe a brother or a sister, they could even be someone’s friend, maybe they still are. But somewhere along the way they ate the bread of adversity and never recovered. How do they make us feel? How many times has the thought arisen in our comfortable mind “why don’t they just get a job, I have to work, so should they?” Have we stopped to consider that with no place to call their home and hang their heart they can’t even fill out an application for a job? Do we realize that they are dirty, smelly and most only have the clothes upon their back, would we visit McDonalds if they were serving us that way? As for the welfare system, yes, it is true that there are some who take advantage of it, (there is always a Judas with his hand in the treasury) but there are those who cannot even try because they have no place to lay their head or keep their vital records one needs to prove who they are. The truth is; no one starts out in life wishing to become a failure, no one starts a marriage hoping it will end in divorce, no one holds their newborn and looks to a broken estranged relationship down the road. No one starts their career out hoping to get laid off; who in their right mind wakes up and says “ I think I’ll go and lose my job and not be able to find another so I cant take care of my family, I’ll become addicted to something to help me forget my troubles and I will slowly or quickly lose everything and everyone I hold dear?” But somewhere along the way for millions of people that is exactly what has happened, their intention wasn’t for their destruction, it was for their very survival and they didn’t know the One who can make all things new! In one day or one hour, life has changed and turned for the worst and suddenly all the things they dreamed about have been trampled underfoot and survival becomes their normal. But OUR Normal can become someone elses MIRACLE. We don’t have to travel to some distant land to find suffering, all we have to do is look right in our own backyard, down the street two blocks up or drive a little ways and we can find it…. They are the silent sufferers of this earth, no voice to be heard, no fight left in them, because they have no place to lay their head or their weary, broken heart. What I love about Jesus is very early in his life; He had no place to lay His head. The Son of God, the Savior of all men, was homeless, on the run trying to survive. Can it be that because of the hardships his parents went through running from his homeland because of an evil decree, can it be the reason He says that our act of worship is to take care of the orphans and widows and to defend and HELP the poor? Jesus didn’t say for us to take an analytical assessment on each person to see if they have or haven’t got what it takes for us to help them. I don’t recall ever hearing that come from his lips, but what I do recall is Him telling you and I to defend those who cant defend themselves, and if a brother asks, if it is within our power to give, than we should give. No reasoning’s, no justifications, just love, one hand helping another, one heart reaching to another, if only just to help ease the suffering. Life on the streets is no picnic, it doesn’t really matter what gets one there, the fact is they are there and it is not what God desires for anyone. Haven’t we all gotten ourselves into great messes? Are we any different than “they” are? The only difference may simply be, we had help and maybe they didn’t, our failures and shortcomings weren’t so devastating blatant or public, but we still have them. Does God love and favor us more because we are educated and we did something with our lives? Maybe we had it rough too, maybe we had hardships, trials and plenty of tears and we made it, but do we realize that the extra fight God gave us wasn’t just for us, but to share with those who don’t. It is said "that one half of the world goes to bed hungry, while the other half goes to bed full," well we may not have all the riches of the world but you and I have a place to lay our head. The Bible says; “that the last shall be first in the kingdom of God and He has chosen the weak of this world to confound the wise.” Do we hear our Lord when He said” I shall not always be with you BUT the Poor, they will” There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, God is not upset with us because we have chosen to ignore the man standing on the corner holding out his cardboard sign for help, but God does want us to consider that if we give anyone a cup of water in His name and to the least of these, we are doing it for Christ himself. I am wondering whose life we could change by giving a dollar wrapped in love and a word from our Lord to their heart, maybe it wont change them, BUT maybe the seed that is planted will someday grow if yet another crosses the same path. Who knows? We are not responsible for others life choices or consequences, but May I remind you that the mercy we show to others will be shown to us. Sometimes our lives get so focused on all of our problems and busyness, but truly what are our problems in light of the ones wandering? Do we daily have to find food from a garbage can or beg on the street from passersby; walk miles to find a shelter only to find it is full and we have to go to an outdoor gymnasium to lay outside on a hard cold paved basketball court in a fenced yard so we don’t get attacked while we sleep? Or just grab some ground hidden somewhere and hope we will make it through the night. Do we fight the trouble of being tempted to become a thief and steal a warm pair of socks so our feet don’t freeze or food from a store? Do we daily face the trouble of hooking, and crooking just so we can forget that we are alone while the world passes us by and we are just trying to survive? Maybe some of us do know that kind of trouble but most of us don’t and either way, unless we have walked in another mans shoes, who are we to silently judge another’s servant? Who am I to determine another’s worth? The very fact that “they” exist is enough for me to find value in them, for God knit them together in their mothers womb and somewhere along the way they got knocked down one too many times. The truth is; we don’t know what we don’t know and my friend, they don’t know but we do and we were destined to cross their path and be the very heart, hands and feet of the Father, if we won’t be, who will? The next time you see them, take a moment and ask the Father to show you how He sees them and by touching just one life, we can reach many……. For the Son of God did not come to be served but to serve and the greatest in the kingdom, is the servant to all…… |
A Change....
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08/26/2008 |
What is it about change that we naturally seem to resist? There are some changes in this life that we wholeheartedly embrace and have felt could have come a lot sooner, for instance; when we are young we cant wait to get older, you and a loved one grows closer, a salary enlarges because of a promotion, ones health improves, a desire of a heart is fulfilled, a change of pace comes, life is simpler, new relationships come, new opportunities open up, you become wiser, God is bigger and the world is brighter. Then, there are the changes we find ourselves fighting with everything in us, like; facing and quitting an addiction, saying goodbye to a beloved, friendships that fade, jobs that are lost, houses are destroyed, families are torn apart, your heart hurts and wont be helped, life becomes complicated, your vision is blurred and the world becomes confusing. What is it about change that we fear? Why is it that most of the time we do have faith but it is the fearful kind of faith and we believe change will be the catalyst for our demise? We fear losing control, we fear the ‘what ifs,’ we fear the ‘how will it all work out,’ what if it doesn’t? We fear being exposed and becoming vulnerable, we fear being uncomfortable, we fear failure and what people will think of us. Ultimately if we are believers we can fear God will not really help us through. When you really think about it, change is many things, change happens everyday whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not and whether we cooperate with it or not. Change is constant, seasons change, people change, age changes, jobs change, kids change, marriages change, churches change, friends change, finances change, even your likes and dislikes change and the list goes on and on. I don’t know if it is the changing that is so overwhelming and seemingly unattainable, it’s not really the people and places or things that we have such a hard time with, but that of our own self. Who am I as a different me, who am I if I’m not me anymore? Who are you as a different you? There is an uncertainty that comes with any kind of change, if the change is a good one than there is an excitement and a renewed sense of hope and purpose, if the change comes as a hardship the proclivity we have as human beings is to try to place blame as to why it occurred. But no matter the whys in life, the Bible says it is the end of a matter that is greater; it’s not how you start out but how you finish. This gives me a great sense of hope and peace, my early part wasn’t so great and the middle?, well lets just say I am embracing the latter end more and more. But even in the places I find myself in at the present moment, I can honestly say that it hasn’t always been easy, there have been more tears than I would have liked, I have fallen more than I have stood up, I have been known to be swimming upstream more than down but yet I have known more peace now than at any other time in my life, I am smarter than I’ve ever been, wiser in my ways, happier and even though I don’t know what it all looks like tied together, I know that in the end when all the pieces are finally put together, I win! Sometimes when we are discontent or when we are lacking, when there is a void in us, we tend to search out others or things to fill us. Sometimes we can even have such a strong desire to move geographically thinking that a new land will afford us peace and joy, only to find it distracts us from the fact that if we are leaking from the inside here we will just leak from the inside over there in a new place. I sense that during those times when God seems silent, when the Word doesn’t leap off the page, when it doesn’t spring up inside us like we’ve known, I have found that, that is not the time to make life changing decisions. I believe the Lord in His wonderful process wants and desires change for us more than we do, but He wants the change to come from the inside out, not the outside in. If the Lord is our Great Physician than maybe, just maybe, He has us sedated so He can do what He does best, surgery. The Bible tells us ‘a new heart I will give you, I will remove your heart of stone and give you a new heart of flesh and a new Spirit I will put within you.’ Some of us have spent years out in the world, and absolutly yes the Lord can change us in an instant but remember, the Lord is not a God of shortcuts, He took the Israelites the long way around not the easy eleven day way, they had been in bondage for 400 years, no, God is a God of the process, it is not the promise we have to obtain for He has already given it, it is the process of change that takes place in ones heart that prepares us for the promise to be fulfilled. Change, it is often unavoidable but it is always purposeful to getting you through. Whether we face difficulty, hardship, pain or pressure, always remember that purpose and power is just around the corner. One of the greatest Words God ever wrote was; “and it came to pass." We cannot go into a new thing with old baggage, drop it, lose it, burn it up, because God has something up ahead more wonderful than anything behind you and you dont need the things that got you through in the wilderness. Change, His method may change but the message always stay the same. |