Hold on! Just wait.
God’s Waiting Room is a familiar place to all praying believers. Those who petition the Father for answers, for relief, for deliverance, for guidance, for comfort, often find such requests are not answered immediately. That’s why God designed His Waiting Room.
If the waiting goes on for months, even years, God’s Waiting Room can become a place of discontentment, anger, frustration, and sometimes, unbelief.
Like most of you, I’ve had lots of experience waiting. So what have I learned from it?
I’ve learned waiting on God doesn’t have to be unbearable as long as I follow some basic principles.
1. Don’t wait alone. Waiting is always easier if it’s shared with someone, even if it’s only virtual sharing.
2. Find something to do while waiting. Occupying body, mind, and spirit makes the waiting easier. If possible, find something you can do to help someone else while you’re waiting.
3. Encourage others as you wait. Empathy for others who may be going through similar circumstances lightens your burden and blesses your soul.
4. Recognize God has a sovereign purpose in the length of your wait. Waiting is no different from anything else in your life—God is working all things for His Glory and your benefit no matter what it is.
Those willing to wait on God are given a special promise. It’s found in Isaiah 64:4: “No eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him.”
While you’re in God’s Waiting Room, He’s out there working for you.
Keep on waiting.
I assure you, it will definitely be worth the wait.
Hold on!!
He Died for Dirt
I love the way David describes how God treats His children in Psalm 103. David says He “satisfies your desires with good things.”(Psalm 103:5).
Later on in this Psalm, David writes, “He remembers we are but dust,” and he writes this in connection with the compassion of God. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are but dust.” (Psalm 103:13-14).
God created human beings out of a common substance, a substance of little worth, just a handful of dirt. Inside this dirt-formed vessel, He placed an image of Himself. When that happened, something of little value became something of infinite value—a living human being. Every human being born after Adam reflects this God-likeness.
Even though we bear His likeness, we are still just dirt, and He remembers this. He knows our frailties, our weaknesses, our dirt, and because of this, He has compassion on us. The Psalmist says, “He crowns you with love and compassion.” (Psalm 103:4).
Even though we’re made of dirt, we have a regal bearing because, as God’s children, we wear the crown of His compassion and love. That’s why David begins and ends this Psalm with these words. “Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.” (Psalm 103:22).
To Know Him is to Fear Him
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Being afraid of God seems foreign to those of us who sing of His blessings, who trust Him with our eternal soul, and who pray daily to Him for guidance, for help, for comfort.
Yet, one can’t read the Bible without encountering the oft-repeated admonition to “fear the Lord.” Throughout the Old Testament, there are numerous examples of God’s children receiving a blessing because they fear God. Also, because of fearing God, they do what He commands them to do. (Genesis 42:18; Exodus 1:17; Exodus 18:21)
Fear of God is not just an Old Testament concept. Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Nevertheless, there are times in my life when I’ve struggled with the concept of what it means to fear God. Yet, I’ve come to realize that having a fear of God gives us a more realistic view of God’s holiness and His power.
Fearing God doesn’t mean we cower in His presence—like a dog who knows he’s displeased his master—nor does it mean we run and hide instead of joyfully approaching Him. Instead, we embrace the fear of God because we recognize His characteristics—His all-powerful wrath toward sin, His unending sovereignty, and His unapproachable holiness—are an accurate understanding of who God really is.
The fearfulness of God is a reality, even if we don’t like it very much.
Having a true picture of God is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
We should fear God. We should be in awe of His wrath and His judgment. Yet, at the same time, we should have peace, knowing He is shielding us from wrath, sheltering us in His arms forever.
It’s the Best Plan
Do you have a plan this year? A plan to lose weight? A plan to learn a new skill? A plan to pay off your credit cards? A plan to take a vacation? Lots of plans. But what is the BEST PLAN?
The best plan I ever made was to read the Bible through in one year. I chose a method—one that someone else had already figured out—and within a few weeks, I was enjoying reading God’s Word on a daily basis more than I ever imagined.
That was forty-five years ago, and I’ve read the Bible through each year since then. Strangely enough, it still seems fresh every morning. Only the God who made heaven and earth could do that. Only the God who desires a relationship with me could do that.
You’ll find there’s no better plan for your life than committing a portion of your day to discovering God’s revelation of Himself in His Word.
Your life will never be the same.
Why Was He Born?
Born to be cursed, not to curse.
Born for sinners, not to sin.
Born to love, not to hate.
Born to accept, not to reject.
Born for failure, not for success.
Born to poverty, not to wealth.
Born for hope, not for despair.
Born for healing, not for affliction.
Born to set free, not to bind up.
Born to reveal, not to conceal.
Born for laughter, not for tears.
Born for compassion, not for anger.
Born to die, not to live.
Born for you.
THE BIG THANK
If I was restricted to only ONE THANK,
to whom would my BIG THANK go?
I’d give it to the ONE who deserves it all.
THANK YOU for being a
grace-giving,
faith-making,
man-saving,
love-providing,
sin-forgiving,
need-supplying,
pride-killing,
joy-flowing,
decision-guiding,
universe-creating,
disease-healing,
sorrow-lifting,
gift-imparting,
eternity-sharing,
GOD
Comfort Food Needed
What’s your comfort food? My husband loves mashed potatoes and gravy. I love bread products. Oh, and chocolate, and maybe some cinnamon rolls thrown in too. And pizza! Don’t forget pizza.
But real comfort food can only be found in the Bible. Here are some of my favorites.
“Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!” Psalm 31:24.
“Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.” Psalm 33:20-21.
For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him.” 2 Chronicles 30:9.
Most of all, turn to the ONE who gives comfort.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.” 2 Corinthians 1:3
Hidden in Plain Sight
Because I write mystery/suspense/thrillers, I’m always doing research on technology like hidden cameras, spy drones, and everyday objects that can be used for surveillance. Do you know the very best place to hide something? Hide it in plain sight. People tend to overlook things that are right in front of them.
How many people look at a button on a shirt and think it could be a hidden camera? No one but a spy or a thriller writer, which is all the more reason why it’s the perfect spot for one.
But “hidden in plain sight” doesn’t just apply to spies and detectives and hidden cameras. There are all kinds of hidden words for us in Scripture—staring us right there in the face just waiting for us to discover them.
I recently discovered one of these hidden jewels in Jude. Jude? That’s right. No wonder I’ve overlooked it. How often do you read from the book of Jude? It’s the book just before Revelation, so small it doesn’t even have chapters.
Here’s a “hidden in plain sight” treasure from Jude 24-25: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.”
There are several reasons why these verses got my attention, but here are just three of them: 1) God not only helps us as we struggle with sin, He’s “able to keep us from stumbling.” 2) When we appear before Him in His presence, He’ll present us blameless in His sight. 3) When he presents us blameless before His presence, he’ll do it “with great joy.”
Okay, here’s one more: So often, we think of Jesus as our Savior, and rightly so, for his sacrifice on Calvary “saved” us from the wrath of God we all deserve. Yet Jude 25 calls God the Father our Savior: “to the only God, our Savior . . .”
No wonder Jude ends his letter with a praise to Him that we give him “glory, majesty, dominion, and authority . . .”
There you go—a magnificent truth hidden in plain sight for you to treasure and enjoy.
He’s in the Light
I’m a very practical person. I like things to make sense, to be understandable, to be well-ordered. That’s why, whenever I’m reading the Bible and come across a verse that doesn’t make sense, it immediately gets my attention.
A verse that recently got my attention was Psalm 36:9, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.”
It was the last part of the verse that got my attention because, normally, when believers speak of seeing God or drawing closer to God or sensing the presence of God, there is an emphasis on the fact that it’s during the dark days, when God is more easily perceived.
However, like many aspects of living in God’s Kingdom, man’s way of thinking is reversed. Living in God’s Kingdom means “the first shall be last.” God says if you want to be great, “be a servant.” He admonishes believers to “repay evil with good” and “love your enemies.”
Thus, even though it’s true that the light of His Presence can sometimes be more easily seen when darkness envelops our world, the more we walk in His Light, the more we see His Light.
That’s because, as John writes in I John 1:5, “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all,” so, the closer we walk toward the source of light, the brighter the light becomes.
Oh, the voices!
Voices! We hear voices each and every day. They tell us to order this, pay attention to that, go there, come here.
Other voices post on our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, our social media sites, wanting us to sign this, like that, watch that, play this.
Who merits our attention? Whose voice is the worthy voice?
A crippled old man appears in the gospel of John to answer these questions. (John 5:1-17).
He doesn’t have a name in the gospel, but everyone at the pool of Bethesda knew him. He’d been lying there for thirty-eight years, unable to take advantage of the pool’s healing properties. Then Jesus stopped by one day, and, in one instantaneous moment, He took care of the crippled man’s lifelong problem.
Following Jesus’ instructions, the Man Made Whole gathered up his bedroll and walked away. Later, when asked by the religious leaders what he thought he was doing carrying around his bed on a Sabbath, he told them he was doing what he’d been instructed to do by the man who’d healed him, by the man who had enough authority to make him whole again.
The Man Made Whole was carrying his bed—in defiance of the religious authorities—because he recognized someone who was able to give life to his withered limbs was someone with authority, someone worthy of his attention.
This same man, this Jesus of Nazareth, healed me one day. He healed me of a lifelong sin problem, a sickness so severe I was doomed for eternal destruction. He did so by taking sin’s disease on Himself and paying the price for it Himself. Now, he commands me to take up my life and live it for Him.
His voice is a voice worth hearing.
Listen to His words from the rest of John 5, “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” (25-26)
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