For thus says the high and lofty One — He Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, but with him also who is of a thoroughly penitent and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the thoroughly penitent [bruised with sorrow for sin] (Isaiah 57:15, Amplified)
God is a life-giver. A God of revival. He revives the spirit of the contrite (literally “crushed”) and the heart of the broken. He is the God who raises from the dead.
But He can’t raise us if we aren’t dead.
My flesh, on the other hand, is content with half-life measures. [click to continue…]
The apostles came back and told Jesus everything they had done. He took them with him to a city called Bethsaida so that they could be alone. But the crowds found out about this and followed him. He welcomed them, talked to them about the kingdom of God, and cured those who were sick.
Toward the end of the day, the twelve apostles came to him. They said to him, “Send the crowd to the closest villages and farms so that they can find some food and a place to stay. No one lives around here.”
Jesus replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish. Unless we go to buy food for all these people, that’s all we have.” (There were about five thousand men.)
Then he told his disciples, “Have them sit in groups of about fifty.” So they did this.
Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and blessed the food. He broke the loaves apart and kept giving them to the disciples to give to the crowd. All of them ate as much as they wanted. When they picked up the leftover pieces, they filled twelve baskets. (Luke 9:10-17, GW)
How do you feed 5,000 men, plus women and children? That was the assignment. And it wasn’t Jesus’ job.
“Uh, Lord, dismiss the crowd so they can go find somewhere to sleep and eat. We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
“You feed them,” Jesus said.
Get the scene. [click to continue…]
by Andy Wood on March 17, 2009
in Enlarging Your Capacity, Exploring the Possibilities, Five LV Laws, Insight, Leadership, Life Currency, Love, LV Alter-egos, LV Cycle, LV Stories, Principle of Freedom, Principle of Legacy
Maewyn Succat. Bet you never thought to hang that name on your son. But Maewyn wasn’t from around these parts, and his name apparently suited him as he grew up in his native Wales.
Maewyn had a pretty respectable upbringing. His granddaddy was a preacher, and his dad was a deacon – though rumor had it that Dad’s religious affiliations had more to do with tax deductions than spiritual passion.
In most ways, I suppose, Maewyn was your typical teenager. Times were tough, but youth is a time to dream of something better. No doubt this teenager had dreams, hopes, and plans to get there.
But all of that came crashing down when Maewyn’s family estate was attacked and he was abducted, placed in chains, and hauled off into slavery, far away from his home and his family.
What do you do when all you’ve ever known is ripped away from you? How do you respond when your dreams, your hopes, your family, and your heritage become distant memories or painful reminders of a life that once was?
Some children encounter such things at very early ages, and never remember their heritage or parents. Not Maewyn. He’d seen too much. Known too much. Missed too much. [click to continue…]
April 1 is coming, and with it is the release of Kaye Miller’s new book, Called to Love – Stories of Compassion, Faith, and God’s Amazing Grace. I was privileged to work with Kaye on it, and can tell you, it’s a must-have book. Kaye masterfully gives love a face, a Name, and a set of instruments with which to express it. You can pre-order called to love at Amazon here, or at Barnes & Noble Online here.
The following is a composite description of one of the most profound love-related experiences Kaye walked through. On some level, I think you’ll be able to relate. Enjoy! And order the book!
Most of us will not be required to love to the extent that it costs our physical lives. But we will have to love enough to be willing to give up our own desires, our time, our preferences, our schedules and much more. But that is a small price, knowing that we were loved by someone named Jesus Christ, who thought we were worth dying for.
This came home to me in a particularly poignant way in my responsibilities as an intensive care nurse. I heard God’s call loud and clear as He called me to work with the leprosy of our day. I will never forget the first time I cared for a patient with AIDS. I thought, “God, I can’t so this! I have a family – small children who need me. Please don’t ask me to do this!” I stood outside the door to the room of my first AIDS patient for what seemed like an eternity, just praying: “Lord what do I do?” Then I remembered what Jesus did, and what my father did. They willingly, lovingly, touched the lepers of their day. I could do no less.
I took a deep breath and opened the door – [click to continue…]
Interested in getting a head start on your firewood for next winter? I once heard of a unique way to drop a tree. It seems some villagers in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific have learned how to conquer the really big ones. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax, the natives cut it down by yelling at it. (I’m not making this up. I read it in a book, so it must be true.) Just at dawn these woodsmen with special powers sneak up on a tree and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They do this every day for 30 days, and the tree dies and falls over. The theory is that yelling kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.
Felling by yelling. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Crazy enough to be true.
I’ll have to admit, though, I’ve never seen it happen. I’ve never yelled at a tree (and I wouldn’t tell you if I had). Not for thirty days. Not for one day. Furthermore, I’ve never seen anyone else yell at a tree. So I can’t say by experience that hollering works on trees.
But it does work on kids. I have seen that happen.
Works on spouses, too.
Some people yell at their cars or their washing machine, and it doesn’t seem to do much good. But I’ve seen it drop a few pastors. And I’ve seen it kill the spirit of a friend or two as well. [click to continue…]
I heard a funny story recently about a lady with certain-colored hair, who was in a desperate financial condition. The details are a little hazy, but here goes:
She knelt down beside her bed and prayed, “Oh God, please help me win the lottery. If I don’t win the lottery, they’re coming to cut my power off.” She didn’t win the lottery, and her power was cut off. She prayed again to win the lottery to avoid losing her car. She didn’t win the lottery, and her car was repossessed. A third time she prayed to win the lottery. This time, the bank foreclosed on her house. She prayed again, frustrated and angry. “If this is how you treat your children, I’ll never pray again.”
About that time, there was a knock at the door. She opened it to find a stranger. “I have a message from the Lord,” the stranger said. “Would you PLEASE buy a ticket”?
We serve a God who is capable of doing “far more abundantly above all we could ever ask or think” (Ephesians 3:30). But He insists that somehow we get involved in the process.
Two Candidates for a Miracle
This is illustrated in back-to-back stories in 2 Kings 3-4. Two different people summoned the prophet Elisha. The first was the king of Israel, whose army was dehydrated and facing sure defeat. The second was the widow of a prophet, who was facing the loss of her sons to slavery to pay off her creditor.
Elisha advised similar things. [click to continue…]
It all started with an idea in the mind of a four-year-old. Cassie certainly wasn’t the first kid to set up shop as a lemonade business. But she’d read about it or seen it on some cartoon or something, and she was inspired.
We were living in Birmingham. Corner lot, pretty busy street. But that didn’t deter Miss Entrepreneur and her twin sister. They were out to make some money, and had just been given a sure-fire way to do it.
What do you say to a born dreamer, with stars in her eyes, and a plan for making her dreams come true?
“Okay.”
You say, “Okay.”
That’s what Mamma said, and she went about helping the twins prepare for their first business venture. There was a table to set up, a sign to make, and, of course, a pitcher of lemonade and cooler of ice to prepare.
And there were the pigtails. I’ll never forget the pigtails. [click to continue…]
What gets you to mash on the gas? To run, not walk. What gets you to turn off the TV, marshal all your forces, or move to the front of the line – even if you, like me, are a procrastinator?
There, I admitted it. I’m one of those people who dances with deadlines and lives by the motto, “Only do today what you can’t put off until tomorrow.”
But that doesn’t mean I never hurry. (After all, even the hare hurried when he woke up from his nap and found out he was losing to a tortoise.)
Yesterday I got a kick in the quick. It wasn’t so much a Jesus-jab in my procrastinating rear end as it was a moment of conviction that really captured my attention. More on that in a minute. As a result of God’s little attention-getter, I did some thinking. I’d like you to do the same: What do you hurry to do?
My Hurry Points
I found five things that get me to “grab a gear.” [click to continue…]
Tense Truth: God gives you desires you can never satisfy and makes demands you can never fulfill. He then goes about bridging the gap, doing for you what you can never do for yourself. Your primary responsibility is to trust Him to be Himself – to rest in His faithfulness.
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Have you ever felt like God was somehow playing a joke on you? You hear people talking about being forgiven, and you feel guilty for, well, feeling guilty. You read the stories about miracle-working power, and wonder why you got left at the station. You learn more and are less happy; work harder, but feel weaker. You’ve learned to speak “Christianese” and go through the motions, but sometimes you just feel like a fraud.
What if I were to tell you that God has a glorious answer? Something more liberating than a self-improvement project or yet another string of self-disappointments?
David’s Truth Discovery
For nearly a year, David had played the role. The psalmist of Israel, the beloved king, had gone through the motions, mouthed the words, and tipped his hat to the man he once was. Very few knew people the real story: David was just a shell of the man he once had been. [click to continue…]
It took more than 25 years, but I finally met Jesus at a wedding. And when I did, I made peace with weddings in general. I’d like to tell you how.
For years I have made the statement that I’d rather do a funeral any day than a wedding. Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds twisted, vile, and patently un-American. But from a ministry perspective, there’s no comparison. Unlike weddings, at the funeral:
- The family will actually listen to what I have to say.
- Nobody has spent years fantasizing and obsessing about how this will be the perfect day.
- The cost, even with caskets and cemetery plots, is usually less.
- Long-term success is assured – deceased persons don’t have a 50/50 chance of changing their minds at a later date.
- Prospective candidates aren’t inundated with supermarket magazines modeling the latest casket fashions.
- There are no attendants who are required to buy swishy dresses or rent tuxedos.
- People don’t “experiment” by cohabitating with the casket for a year or two to see if there’s a fit.
- Photographers don’t roam freely about the service, or dominate the entire reception.
- Expenses can be offset by life insurance. (Try telling your insurance agent you need wedding coverage.)
- People actually give some thought to life after the ceremony.
Simply put, marriage is made in heaven, but weddings (aka American Idolatry) are made in hell.
An Idea Born of Necessity
All that changed a couple of years ago, however, when I was doing premarital counseling with two couples who had a similar problem. [click to continue…]