Tag Archives: God

Finding What We Seek

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[I’ll be away from the Internet for a few days, so I’ll share with you some of the articles I’ve written for Heartlight magazine. These articles also ran on the HopeForLife.org website, which is a ministry of Herald of Truth.]

Turtles sitting on a rock. Nothing uncommon, at least not for turtles. Most reptiles, being cold-blooded creatures, like to sun themselves. The only problem was these two turtles were in an artificial pond in the interior of a hotel in Varadero, Cuba. Although their instincts led them to believe otherwise, these two turtles wouldn’t find the sun that day nor any other day. The best they could hope for was to gather warmth from the air around them.
I couldn’t help but see a metaphor as I watched the turtles. These animals were hard-wired to climb out of the water on a regular basis to seek the sun and its warmth. Age-old natural forces led them to repeat this behavior even though experience would have told them it was a futile endeavor. I couldn’t help but think that we, mankind, have an instinctive need to seek God and his warmth, yet many of us fail to see that we aren’t looking in the right place. While the turtles have been fenced in against their will, so many of us find ourselves shut off from God’s light due to our own choices. God seeks us out and something inside each of us longs for him, yet we remain trapped behind walls of our own making, walls that keep us from going to him for the life-giving warmth that he gives. Some suffer behind walls of intellectual pride. Others find their way to God blocked by some sin that gets between them and their Maker, something they just don’t want to let go of. Many people can’t see past their possessions or their ambitions. For some it’s past hurts, for others it’s fear of the future. We’re driven to seek God, yet often settle for a substitute, settle for something that doesn’t fully satisfy.

Thousands of years ago, a Hebrew poet wrote: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). It took me some years to realize that the second part of that verse depends on the first part. When we learn to delight ourselves in the Lord, he becomes the principle desire of our heart. He becomes what we seek above all else. That’s the secret to true contentment. When we learn to seek God above all else, we either receive the other things that we want or we discover that those things are merely substitutes that will never satisfy the longings of our heart.

Just as those turtles are driven to seek the sun, there is something inside of us that needs God. Unlike those turtles, we have the power to put ourselves in the position of not only seeking what we need, but finding him as well.

Winning the big one

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eurosFor a while I’ve joked about Publishers Clearinghouse being my retirement plan. It was a joke, yet I daydreamed at times about what I would do if I actually won a bunch of money.

Then I realized the other day that coming into a bunch of money wouldn’t do me well spiritually. I need that uncertainty about tomorrow, that unsureness about just how everything will get taken care of. It builds my dependence on God, keeps me from thinking that I can do it all myself. I’m not saying that that’s true for everyone, but I’ve found it to be true for me. Throughout my adult life, I’ve gone through times where I didn’t know where the money would come from… and it came. I’ve also gone through some times when I thought, “OK, we’ve finally saved up some money.” And something has come along to wipe out that amount.

It takes me a while, but hopefully I’m learning the lesson. I’ve prayed the prayer from Proverbs that God would let me be neither rich nor poor. And he has faithfully answered that prayer. Now it’s up to me to continue to trust in him.

(Photo by Miroslav Sárička, www.sxc.hu)

Forever

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[While we’re traveling in Argentina, I thought I’d post some of the things that I’ve written for the HopeForLife.org blog; they’ve also been posted to Heartlight. Comments are moderated until I get back; sorry about that folks. Some people don’t know how to play nice.]

“99¢ refills forever!” That’s what the ad for one restaurant claimed. Seemed like a pretty good deal, so I went ahead and bought one of the special cups from the promotion. Once I had the cup in my hand, I noticed some small letters along the side of the cup: “Promotion may be changed or cancelled at any time.” Wait a minute! What happened to “forever”? Apparently forever can be changed or cancelled at any time. Not only with soft drinks, of course. How many pledges to “love forever” fall by the wayside? Does anyone really expect that everyone who claims to be “best friends forever” will remain lifelong friends? When pop singers sing about loving someone “till the end of time,” we know that statement is merely poetic license. In today’s world, “forever” just isn’t what it used to be. At best, forever means “a really long time.”

So when does “forever” mean “through all of eternity”? When God is doing the talking. God can speak confidently about eternity because he has always existed and always will. If a human being wants to promise me something “forever,” I take it with a grain of salt. That person won’t live forever, so they won’t be around to make good on their promise.

When God speaks of forever, he can do so because he doesn’t change. His essential nature will always be the same. The local restaurant doesn’t know what can happen in the future, so they protect their offer with an escape clause. God needs no escape clause. His promises don’t carry fine print. He will always be around to fulfill his promises, and he will never change.

When Jesus was on earth, he made the statement: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). Centuries before Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). What God has promised us, we can believe. When he speaks of forever, we don’t have to worry about changes or cancellations. The apostle Paul wrote: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). That’s a promise we can believe in.

www.hopeforlife.org

Copyright Herald of Truth ministries

Cries in the Dark

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[While we’re traveling in Argentina, I thought I’d post some of the things that I’ve written for the HopeForLife.org blog; they’ve also been posted to Heartlight. Comments are moderated until I get back; sorry about that folks. Some people don’t know how to play nice.]

The cries were faint, barely audible in the early morning air. There was no air conditioning in our cabin at the youth camp, so we had all the windows open. One of my friends heard the sound about the same time that I did. We bounded out of bed, threw on some clothes and went running toward the sound.

One of the adults that was there that week caught us as we headed out. “Whoa!” he said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Someone’s crying for help.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied. “The river has flooded. There isn’t anything we can do for them right now.”

Those cries still haunt me when I think back on that moment. Thankfully, I can tell you that all of the people that were still alive at that time were rescued by our camp staff. Eight people had already lost their lives, though. As the counselor told us, there was nothing we could do for them.

I hear similar cries almost every day, cries for help, cries for rescue. The man who moved to another country with his wife, only to find himself all alone when she died suddenly. The woman who wants to stop the improper relationship she has with her boss. The mother whose children have scorned her love and abandoned their home. The man who says, “I’ve been so bad; can God ever take me back?” They cry out for deliverance. Their voices echo in the night.

In a very real sense, there’s nothing I can do for them, either. At least not me personally. But I know a God who does come to the rescue, who offers hope to the hopeless. He can do something. Because of him, I can write back to these people and say, “There is a way out.”

If you haven’t watched the videos at HopeForLife.org, I want to encourage you to do so. The videos tell of people who were rescued. Look around on the site, reading the articles there. The next time you hear someone crying out for spiritual rescue, send them there. Not to find the people who are on the site. Not to place their hope in us. Send them there to find rescue. From the God who cared enough to send his Son to die, that others could live a life of hope.

There is something I can do for those that cry out in the dark. I can point them to the God who rescues.

www.hopeforlife.org

Copyright Herald of Truth ministries

Stepping Out

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[While we’re traveling in Argentina, I thought I’d post some of the things that I’ve written for the HopeForLife.org blog; they’ve also been posted to Heartlight. Comments are moderated until I get back; sorry about that folks. Some people don’t know how to play nice.]

It’s called rappelling. It’s the means by which you walk down a near-vertical surface with the aid of a rope around your body. I was fifteen when I did it. I don’t think I’ll do it again.

Let me state up front that I have some fear of heights. Not like the lady I knew in Argentina that couldn’t stand up when she was on the ninth floor of an apartment building. But if I’m in a situation where I can picture myself falling, I definitely experience heightened anxiety.

My rappelling episode started off with me having to walk off the top of a cliff. Backwards. Slowly but surely I made my way down the rock face, with an ever-growing appreciation of the power of prayer. About halfway down, I saw one of the staff members from the camp that I was participating in; he was perched on a nearby ledge. “You need to go to your left,” he told me.

“That’s easy for you to say,” I thought to myself. I was near a protrusion; going to my left meant stepping out in space for a moment or two. Going to my right kept my feet on the solid face of the mountain. You guessed it: I went to my right. Later, when I was about fifteen feet from the bottom, I ran out of rope. By not following the staff member’s instructions, I had gotten the rope snagged on a rock and could no longer reach my destination.

The ending to the story is less than dramatic; within five minutes or so, the rope was freed and I was able to get down. But I often think back to that moment of decision, when I had to choose between the uncertainty of stepping out in space and the safety of what I could see and feel. It helps me to sympathize with people who face that same decision in their spiritual lives. How much easier it would be if we could take God to the laboratory, place Him under a microscope and prove His existence once and for all. How comforting it would be to have an undeniable certificate of authenticity from God showing that the Bible is true in every way. How convenient it would be if faith were not required, if we could operate only on what we can see and feel. But it’s not that way; to find God we have to step out in faith.

Let me, like that camp staffer years ago, encourage you to step out in space. Go beyond what our senses perceive and step out in faith. I and many others can tell you that God is there, that He is real and He is waiting for you. Take a chance, reach out and find Him; don’t wait until you reach the end of your rope!

www.hopeforlife.org

Copyright Herald of Truth ministries