It is all about Goodness, Grace and Glory

I ran accross this quote recently...

God did not bring you into the world because He had any need of you, useless as you are; but solely that He might show forth His Goodness in you, giving you His Grace and Glory. And to this end He gave you understanding that you might know Him, memory that you might think of Him, a will that you might love Him, imagination that you might realise His mercies, sight that you might behold the marvels of His works, speech that you might praise Him, and so on with all your other faculties..-- Francis de Sales

There are days where we all feel useless...but even then we have a purpose. We are designed to show God's goodness, His glory and His grace. So in the day that awaits we have work to do. We need to live the day with our eyes wide open to the movements of His grace, our hearts listening for His voice, our memories rehearsing His acts of mercy to us, and words pointing toward His glory.

Harvest Workers?

Scripture Reflection: Matthew 9: 35 – 38

35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. 36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 "Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest."

Jesus, you really saw the people….with eyes of compassion…help me to see through your eyes the people the surround me.  Help me to understand the needs in a way that I have not in the past.  Help me to see beyond the present presentation to the kind of person that they can be,  if touched by your Holy Spirit.

Jesus you saw the people that presented to you in need in a way that only you can.  As people who needed your touch, your healing, your ministry to their hurts both physical and emotional.

You knew that they need leadership and direction.  You knew the need that surrounded you.  You knew the need for workers for your harvest. Help me to remember that it is your harvest and not mine… you are the one that owns the harvest…the seed and the field…I am just the farm hand.

This request that you made of the disciples,  you asked them to pray to the Father for the workers that were need.  You who were the agent of creation…were limited and were unable within the present context to do the whole job…unless the Father sent the needed workers.  It is interesting that all but one of those who were asked to pray became the answer to their prayers.  Funny how that works...

You walked the cities, the streets, towns and the villages, you knew the need up close and personal.  You saw the death…you saw the twisting that was going on of peoples hopes and dreams and of what could be...and you asked the disciples to pray not just for the harvest but for harvest workers.  In fact the harvest was assumed.

In this day that will start all too soon, give me your eyes to see the people that surround me with you eyes, to identify the needs with eyes like yours.

Trust Verses Moral Muscle

Romans 8:5-8
5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. 

I can only trust that you have lead me to the place where I am at for a reason.  I am here with the blessings and the growing edges as a part of the plan.  It is not coincidence or luck that has brought me here but blessing and grace.   

Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God!

So the point is not moral muscle but grace and hope worked out over a lifetime of trusting for the next step to be shown. So really you call me to trusting for the next step to be able to sense the Spirits power at work. The validation of the Spirit comes as I step out in faith and trust.

Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. 

Ok so the lesson to learn is not to focus on where I am but where you are Jesus?  You are at work in your people…you are at work shaping and impacting events and forces that shape my world.  You are at work shaping and changing me in that process at the same time. 

You are at work in this place so it can be a place of holiness and of hope a place of dynamic and sustained vitality…a place of new challenges…a place where the Spirit of the Living God can work freely and without constraint.

The focus needs to be on you and on your grace not on legalism and on dotting “I’s” and crossing “T’s” not on self in the sense that the Law can some how fix what is wrong inside…it just can not happened. 

So what is the next step?  How do I begin to focus on you instead of self? 

Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.


The start is in thanksgiving and gratefulness for what you have already done.   I am blessed and I am cared for and I have been lead.  All of that is because of your grace at work within me.  That has been a work of power…to take me and bring me to where I am right now.  You have been the one to provide and sustain, to strengthen and to protect. You have been at work throughout my life and I trust you to continue that work. 

Thoughts From Back of the Bus

Started this a couple of months ago and never finished it. It was late fall and I was on my way out of town Psalm 25 just came up in my devotions as we were starting our trip down to OBX.  

There were no enemies surrounding me that I know of...but the journey just reminded me of this psalm. We know so little on the left and the right our our path...and yet we are protected and provided for in such good supply.

Psalm 25 

To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

2 O my God, in You I trust,

Do not let me be ashamed;

Do not let my enemies exult over me.

Starting points are important. Trust is the place to start my journey each day...trust in the goodness and the grace of my Lord. I forget that so often...so much of my journey is about when I start and where I end up. So much of it is circles...

This morning I lift up my soul to you. I lift up the thoughts of my heart in these early morning moments. Even though I over look it often, I have experienced your protection this week, even when I wasn't aware of it you were still protecting. The call is to trust in your protection even, when enemies seem to be everywhere.

Am I investing my trust in you? There are times when I sense the enemy of my soul pacing me...stalking me. You are my only hope Lord...the one to whom I can run. I put my trust in your watchcare and your goodness, for this day that yawns out before me.

3 Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed;
Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed.Wait for the Lord...hmm novel thought. Not something that I do very often.

4 Make me know Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths.

5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me,For You are the God of my salvation;For You I wait all the day.

There is much more intention and direction to the journey than I am aware of, Lord. From my view of the back of the bus it looks as if we are just barely within the guard rails...but then how much can you see from the back seat?

Timing is in your hands not in mine. I do not and cannot force the duration of your blessing or of those times of trouble that come my way. All that I can do is praise your wisdom, grace and mercy given to me at the beginning of each day.

Fish Lips and Faith

Matthew 17:24-27
24 After they arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Your teacher pays the double drachma tax, doesn’t he?” 

This is a little vignette of irony that just jumps off the page at me…

Lord Jesus--You are the son of God, your father owns the temple and here this temple tax collector is asking for the temple tax.  I wonder if this person put it together after the resurrection…I   wonder if this person was ever a believer.  This little incident would be something to remember and say…I can’t believe that I ever did that.

25 He said, “Yes.” When Peter came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do earthly kings collect tolls or taxes—from their sons or from foreigners?”26 After he said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.

Lord Jesus-You picked up on the irony of the situation.  They were calling you’re a foreigner in your own father’s house. I wonder if there was a slight sardonic smirk that crossed your face.

 27 But so that we don’t offend them, go to the lake and throw out a hook. Take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth, you will find a four-drachma coin. Take that and give it to them for me and you.”

Lord Jesus-You know where the money is coming from that we need. You know if it is by usual means or by your active intervention.  You are engaged in the process that supplies the needs of your people.   It is your intervention that has allowed us the skills that we have and the level of successes that your people have experienced.  We participate in that blessing  and you continue to lead and guide.   It is not ours to hold to in fact the more we hold on to stuff the less we can trust in the giver of every good gift that comes our way.  The provision that evidences comes from your hand not matter who's name is on the signature line of the check.

Remind us of the fish story and what it means…stewardship is trust that the fish will be there when they are needed. Our job is to keep fishing in all of the ways that are available to us in all of the places where we can, in all the ways that we can, for as long as we can.  

Maybe the problem at times is we just don’t go fishing enough in the right place and look enough fish in the mouth.   

James 1:17

¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

The Road Runs Through Me

I could have anticipated that the road is more than a metaphor in my life...the journey has in so many ways come to define my life.  Life is traveling around sometimes over the same itinerary again and again. It is a part of the job but beyond that it has become a part of my life.  The car, the open road  with tunes playing in the background and a goal in mind for the day.

The travel is not the point it is a part of the process to resolve the issue, to problem solve and to be able to move on.  So much of life is like that...process that leads to resolution that results in outcomes that require more resolution.  Problem solving that in it's self creates reactions that were not anticipated.  That in turn needs fine tuning that leads to further needed action...points me toward the spiritual.  The reality is: that process continues in my heart not just my head.  There are issues, problems which lead to resolution which leads to the challenge of an new set of changes that are called for.  And the road goes on right straight though my heart.


Lord Jesus--When you called me to follow you, I never realize that it would be a dynamic process over time, space and a life time of change.  Why did I get this picture at the beginning that one decision and the matter was settled? I chose to follow you and that has lead to a million decisions that rested on that first choice. It has been a journey...no more of a adventure. The road to kingdom come runs straight and true even when from my end all I see is asphalt.

The connection between process and product is not always direct.  The connection between journey and destination sometimes is a twisted blindsided highway.  That does not mean that I have somehow gone off track if I end up places that I didn't anticipate.  It just means I have to trust the One who led me and that He will continue to lead.

The road is about process and movement toward an end that is known from the start of the trip.  It is occasioned by all sorts of things...but the end result is that there is the need for relationship building.  One way or another that is always a part of my travels.  That is the direct connection to my Jesus walk daily...

Amos 3:3
Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?

If there is any fundamental lesson that I learned in this walk with Jesus it is that all of life is about relationship building.  This picture of Sweet and myself is one of my favorite.  First, it is at a place that we love to go.  The sand and the sea of the Outer Banks is my favorite.  I am not sure why I like this picutre so much.  I guess it is that we are headed in the same direction and the sun is shining...it is late fall and we remain together.  How much better does it get?

Does the road run through me? Yes, and it is the highway of the King.

A Step or Two Beyond A Lewis Quote

"If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown."
C. S. Lewis ~ Mere Christianity

This quote got me thinking. Clearly, Lewis has in mind that a Christ follower has something occur that is a fundamental difference in kind from what they were before. The difference between grass and wheat.

Most of the time in the church we look for differences in degree. Better attendance, better giving, more baptisms, professions of faith. The church in Saratoga Sunday attendance is...

Numbers in general are counting out differences in degree. It was 83 yesterday. John Doe hasn't missed a Sunday all year, or has brought 15 of his friends to church...or has read his Bible through every year for the last 15 years. All are good things, but not the best thing.

What Lewis is pointing to clearly is if we are looking for something that numbers can never indicate. He is pointing to a difference in kind. Grass and wheat are both plants but one is ground cover and one is a source of food. One looks nice and one is productive. One according to Jesus is burnt up and the other is gathered into barns for safekeeping.

Here is the thing...I am clear that a fundamental difference occurs at conversion. It is written across the gospels in love and in large print letters. But that change is on going and points toward a harvest that occurs repeatedly. The harvest itself creating the seeds for the next years harvest. So difference in kind leads to ongoing organic growth that is not forced or stilted but instead the natural thing that wheat does. It requires ploughing and sowing and reaping. It is a field,  a life and an organic process that continues to be tended.

Lord Jesus--So where are the places that ploughing is required? Where are the places where planting is taking place? Where in my life do I sense without any doubt the blessing and fruitful harvest of the Holy Spirits work?  Thank you for the Holy Spirit's ongoing tending in my life.