Lord, help me to endure honorably

Well, it's examination time again. On the way home on Thanksgiving, my wife had a small accident that left her with no injuries (thank you Lord) but totalled our car. We have been planning to move into a better housing situation at the end of the month but those plans are in serious jeopardy now. My employer has drastically changed our incentive plan so my bonus check was MUCH smaller than we were anticipating. Our expenses rose slightly recently because of multiple factors. This is the text book definition of a trial. There is no possibility for us to meet all our needs in our own strength.

I know this a trial because about a month ago, the Lord showed me how He expects me to react to trials like this. You can read those expectations in my September 28 post. The short version is, we are to continue tithing, find someone we can sow into who needs just as much or more help than we do and then step back to watch God meet our needs in His abundant, miraculous way. Soooooooo here goes.

I guess I'm partly to blame for this great collision of setbacks because I asked the Lord for an opportunity to demonstrate great faith. I have been seeking an opportunity to graduate to a whole new level of faith. So lo and behold, here tis! I now have a golden opportunity to come unglued and panic. I could very easily become completely unspooled and shout at the heavens. That's exactly what I would have done a year ago. I would have wailed and cried "I can't take it anymore." And expected God to swoop into to the rescue. A year ago, He may have been able to grant me more grace and come to my rescue in spite of that childish response but not now. He has shown me too much of what He expects and He knows how much I know about these things now. If I were to respond childishly like that now, the Lord would be unable to do ANYTHING for me. I would be forfeiting any help from Him at all. I can not, I must not allow my flesh to lead right now. I MUST respond with faith. This is the chance for advancement I have been asking for and I MUST endure this trial with faith and joy. I MUST count this all joy and eagerly expect God's reward for my behavior.

I am so looking forward to my testimony that I will have as a result of this trial. When this trial has run its course, I'll be standing. I'll be standing on the Lord's promises and the devil's neck. I'll be able to tell others from my own experience how the Lord responds to people acting in faith. I'll be able to tell people how delighted God is when He sees us refusing to be intimidated. At this moment, Satan is bringing to mind all the people I know who are doing well financially, who could easily meet this need with their own resources because they have been wiser stewards with their money. The devil is accusing me of lazy stewardship and pointing out how pathetic it is that I can't even replace a vehicle worth less than $2000.00. He's reminding of the shambles my finances are in (as if I needed reminding.) He's doing all he can to get me to abandon my faith. He's giving me every reason he can to get me to disqualify myself for the Lord's provision. I don't blame him. I've been a pretty easy target for most of my resurrected life. It's been very easy for him to bully and harass me into panic mode and then hound me into self-pity. But praise God those days are over!

Right now, as I'm reviewing the situation, I can feel my resolve grow stronger. I can feel my spine strengthen. I can see how the Lord has lovingly crafted a test that is custom-fitted for my level of faith. This is obviously the opportunity I've been seeking. Praise God, I am about to graduate! I am about to stand up and walk like a man! My singular prayer at this moment is that I endure this trial honorably. I pray above all else that I acquit myself admirably. That I do nothing to shame the kingdom or give the enemy the slightest indication that he has won. I pray that this be a spectacular demonstration of faith that gives the Lord all the license He needs to enter into this situation and provide miraculously.

I am off to a good start too. I have already discussed with my wife what we need to do. And despite her tears and anxieties, I have remained positive and have allowed no faithless or idle word to escape my lips. I have been a constant source of reassurance for her. I have also continued to perform well at work. I have not used this as an occasion to pity myself with shoddy workmanship. I am actually quite pleased with my behavior. My co-workers know about my wife's accident, and they know it means we need to buy a car that we don't have any money for right now and their bonuses got severely cut too so they know how tight things are for me. But instead of seeing me get grumpy about all my troubles, they saw me do my job well. They didn't see me cop an attitude or mope, they were treated to the same impromptu off-key singing I use to lighten the mood every day. As far they could tell from my behavior, I am not worried about this turn of events at all. Words can not express how great that feels. I am so pleased with the way I am holding my head up like a man in spite of these troubles. This feels so good, I don't think the miraculous provision God has in store for me will make me feel any better than I do right now. I am still in the middle of my trial and I feel AWESOME!

Thank you Lord for this great opportunity to demonstrate great faith. Help me continue to demonstrate maturity and grace under this pressure as I look forward to your miraculous provision. Thank you Lord for giving me an opportunity to graduate to a higher level of faith.

Things my flesh is not interested in

Praying through
My flesh has no interest in staying up past the point of drowsiness to pray. In fact, not just my flesh but my spirit has no desire to stay up into the wee hours of the night to beg and plead. I wouldn't last 30 minutes. I would however, lose all track of time and happily spend the night actually accomplishing something. But spending the whole night repeating the same request....no thanks. I'll do without and find some way to improvise.

Walking in Love
My flesh is also not interested in learning about love. As far my flesh can tell, love is all about solving other people's problems. That sounds like time and resources that should be spent solving my own problems.

However, if we are to achieve the extraordinary and qualify ourselves for more than just an ordinary life, we must do both of these things. We must be ready and willing to drop everything and obey the leading of the Holy Spirit. Because it is in the denying of our flesh that we honor God. And it is the honoring of God that clears the way for Him to enter into our situations. If there is no denying of the flesh, there is no honoring God. God must be lifted above our flesh. We must prove our allegiance to God is greater than our allegiance to our flesh by making this choice. Praying through and walking in love are two exercises that greatly inconvenience the flesh.

This is where mind renewal comes in. The reason I have spent so many years floundering around ineffectively in my walk with Christ is because I had the wrong understanding about walking in love and prayer. Thank you Lord for giving me fresh insight and revelation on this.

It is currently 5 am (actually 6 am but this is "fall back Sunday.") Less than 20 minutes ago I was sleeping happily. My flesh was content and comfortable. Then something woke me up. It wasn't a loud noise or pain. It was just a gentle exit from sleep into consciousness. It wasn't unpleasant but I do have things I need to do later this morning and it would be best if I was fully rested. So I laid there and tried to go back to sleep. While I was laying there, new revelation came to me about serving the Lord. In a nutshell, the Lord spoke to me about the foolishness of doing everything but the one thing He asks us to do, which is love one another. And how the entirety of His grace and blessings will be showered on the one who walks in love. I thought to myself, "Wow, that's great Lord, thank you for showing me that." and I tried to roll back over and get back to sleep. That's when the Lord spoke to me again and said, "Those who honor me, I will honor and those who despise me will be lightly esteemed." I took that to mean I was supposed to do more than ponder this new revelation. I was supposed to perform some act of honor to the Lord. I was supposed to do something against my flesh's will and seize this very important moment to demonstrate my faith in the Lord. The Lord made it very clear to me that it was very important that I ignore my body's complaints and drag myself out of bed at such an early hour to make sure I properly handled this new insight. This new revelation about walking in love is a vital change in my understanding and will have great impact on me for the rest of my life so it is only fitting that I get up out of bed and act like it's important enough to write down. Here's the added revelation, not only did the Lord give me fresh light on walking in love but He also gave me fresh understanding of the value of obedience. His sharing with me about love was grace. My getting out of bed to write it down was me honoring Him. I feel like I've just passed a test.

I am certain this was a test. I was given the opportunity to honor the Lord this morning and I am so happy to be able to say that I did it! I showed the Lord and every other creature that was watching that I valued the Lord's things enough to make sure they were handled properly. More importantly, I showed my flesh whose boss. I showed my flesh that when it comes to the things of God, we will be crawling out of bed to handle them properly. This is such a big moment for me. Now I'm so excited, I don't think I could get back to sleep if I tried.

This is huge. A lifetime of laziness and carelessness is being erased right now. I can't count the number of times in the past the Lord has shared something with me and I didn't take the time to demonstrate the proper respect for it because it interrupted my sleep or a TV show. Right this very moment, I feel that I have pleased the Lord! This is such an awesome revelation.

Life simplified

I will turn 45 in a month. Since the age of 17, I have been looking for the fast and easy route to riches. With each passing year of it eluding me, I get fooled into continuing this course by the lie that it's too late to do it the slow and steady way. It is whispered into my ear that too much time has been lost and now my only hope is for one of these get-rich-quick schemes to pay off. What is most aggravating about this is the fact that I KEEP FALLING FOR IT!!!! I'm 45 yrs old!. I'm good with computers. I play a pretty good game of chess. I can figure out how to fix things and am usually exceeding expectations. I am a fairly bright individual! Yet, I keep getting fooled into wasting more time year after year by chasing unicorns to mythical treasures. Enough! Perhaps it is too late. Perhaps I have fallen for this myth too many times and I will never achieve my full potential but I will not waste one more minute chasing leprechauns.

Today I began a sure-fire course of action and if I die before I reach my destination I'm okay with being found dead on the road. I take solace in knowing that those who find my dead body will find it on the road to right place. They'll find my fist clinched around the promises of God not some mythical treasure map. Today I set out with a solitary target. Today I put all my eggs in one basket and trust one promise from the Word of God. This promise is found at Hebrews 11:6

Hebrews 11:6 promises me that God is rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. My responsibility is believing this promise. His part is to keep this promise. My part is to demonstrate my belief in this promise by diligently seeking Him. His part is to reward me as I demonstrate my belief. I may have wasted a decade or two but I know I am finally settled on taking the right course. I am fully persuaded that as I diligently seek Him, He WILL reward me.

I find great comfort in this passage. I find it very comforting that it says He IS a rewarder. The Bible doesn't He MAY reward, or He typically rewards, or is likely to reward or OCCASIONALLY rewards those who diligently seek Him. It promises that He IS a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That means that if I diligently seek Him, He WILL reward me. This is a sure thing. This is exactly what WILL happen. If I diligently seek Him, He will reward me. There is no other possible outcome. Even if it takes the rest of my days to see this reward, I will die knowing that I will be rewarded.

I just lost some of you didn't I? Some of you just jumped off this bandwagon didn't you? "Wait just a minute Max, we like the idea of finding a sure-fire method of getting rewarded but waiting until the day we die sounds an awful lot like NOT getting rewarded." Now is a great time for a little perspective. Let's take a few steps back and look at life from eternity. Even if we spend the rest of our days in this clay pilgrimage in constant lack and bad health but escape all of that forever on our death bed, isn't that still a good reward? Wouldn't that be considered an excellent reward? If that is all you got for diligently seeking the Lord, wouldn't that be enough? Shouldn't that be enough? Of course it would. As a matter of fact, many of us came from churches that preached that. Many of us grew up in churches being taught that. Most of come from a background that professes the misconception that all of our reward is in the sweet by-and-by. Aren't we glad know better! Go ahead and scramble back up on the band wagon, I won't hold it against you.

Here's the really good news. We serve a God who once said: If you being evil know how to give good gifts, how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him (Matt 7:11) We know from this passage that Our Father gives good things to those who ask Him. We also know from Mark 10:30 that we don't have to wait until we get to Heaven before we receive our reward. This is all really good news!

Let's review for a moment. The Lord promises us that if we diligently seek Him, he will reward us. He further assures us that He will gives us good things and if that weren't enough, he tells us that we will have these good things now, in this life! What more do I need? More importantly, what have I been waiting for? Why have I wasted anytime at all seeking anything else?

This is where life gets simple for me. I resolve today that I will diligently seek the Lord. The word "diligently" can be translated as "crave" "search out" "investigate" "demand". That is my occupation from now on. I don't care what else the world has to offer. I don't care if I miss out on something. I will be spending the rest of my days diligently seeking the Lord. If some other endeavor presents itself and I determine that it will distract me from diligently seeking Him, then I will have to decline that opportunity. It's just that simple. If it's not diligently seeking Him, then I don't have any business wasting time or effort on it. I can't tell you how much freedom comes with this kind of clarity and resolve.

I have much more to say on this topic and will be expanding my thoughts in the coming days. Tomorrow I plan to look further into the word "diligently". I think it's interesting that this is the commodity that the Lord demands. Until then, if anyone needs to find me, I'll be diligently seeking the Lord.