Purpose of Life and God's Plan

All my life I have heard this question asked. "What is the purpose of life?" When asked that question thirty-eight years ago, my answer was "pleasure". I was an Atheist and believed there was no real meaning to life. Our being here was purely a series of accidental events over a vast continuum of time and our existence amounted to little more than a hiccough, a mere moment in eternity. We came, we saw, we died and then we were nothing but someone else's memory and even that would eventually fade. Therefore, as a beer commercial once touted, we should grab all the gusto we could and have fun. I believed in the mantra of the time, "If it feels good, do it".

And to that end is how I lived. I didn't live to work, I worked to live and my definition of living was wine, women and song. I didn't see the illogic of that saying because I didn't like wine and I didn't grab the gusto of that beer, because I didn't like beer, and I was true to only one woman and I can't carry a tune. My motto then was whiskey, rum, vodka, bourbon and gin, sex-sex-sex and whistling a happy song even if the key shifted often. The real illogic was it didn't bring me joy nor keep the sorrow away. It did not matter how franticly I practiced pleasure in my nights and on my weekends, death, disaster and disease remained a reality.

But thirty-nine years ago all that changed. I got salvation, not in bars or bedrooms, but in the quiet of an evening on my knees. Now, as a Christian, if you ask that question I can tell you with absolute faith what is the purpose of life.  "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." 

That particular quote comes from Mark 12:30, but it is not just a Christian bromide; it is the over riding command of God known to Christian, Jew and Muslim for it first appears in the Books of Moses such as Deuteronomy 6:4, as well as throughout like in Joshua 22:5 - "But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Now the cynic will ask does this fidelity to God and following Christ prevent death, disaster and disease? No, of course not, but those things are not from God, but because of human will turned away from God. The troubles of this world are due to sin, not necessarily our own in every case, but both the good and bad among us must share in the consequences. Being Christian does not shield me from moments of sadness or tragedy, but it takes away the constant sorrow and replaces it with continuous joy because my eyes are on Jesus and my heart on God's promises. The endurance to the end of the slings and arrows of a cursed and sinful world is the proof of our love for God and that we can endure it to the end is the proof of his love of us. 

If you think the Christian lives in a La-la Land where birds always sing and lightning never strikes, then you haven't read the Bible. Point me to a faithful follower of God who lived a life of ease never touched by stress or pain. Our life is not never to suffer, but to experience that inner joy of knowing God has us in his hands even when we hurt.

But what of God's plan for us. Isn't that the other thing we often hear, especially if you are a Christian?  God has a purpose and plan for every person. You begin to ask, what is God's purpose and plan for my life? Perhaps, as I once did, you begin to worry that you missed it or you somehow rejected it.

Oh, can you refuse God? The obvious answer is, yes, you do so when you reject Christ, but I believe you can also reject God's call to a purpose in his plan. It will not stop God's plan, don't flatter yourself in thinking that, but it will certainly bring you sorrow. I cite Esther 4:13-14 for my opinion: "Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

And do not worry that you have missed God's purpose and plan for your life somehow. See, here is the problem of why we get to thinking that. We want to be another Moses or Ruth or Mary or Paul or Billy Graham of even another Esther. Wanting to be those things is not God, it is ambition and ego. We do not choose how God uses us, we can only be willing to be used. I believe the reality is that God might be using me in someway right now and I don't even know it. Our purpose is not to obtain glory, but to reflect the glory of God. If you think this must be by some great achievement, effort or leading accomplished by you, then think upon this in John 9:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." 

But you do have a command to keep you busy in the meantime so you don't fret about how God will use you. You are to tell others the Gospel, and who knows, maybe that is your purpose. 

You also have another command second only to loving God, "The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31.  Do these two things and you'll not have to worry about being used by God and what your purpose is in life.
 

Getting Here Part XII: Impossible Isn't in God's Vocabulary

Do you believe your life can change on a dime? It certainly can change on a ten-minute prayer. Before the month was out our old friends had decided we needn't come visit anymore. We were different, they told us. I guess they meant we weren't fun now.

After September 1975 we were pretty busy. In a rather short time I was assisting in controlling the sound equipment on Sunday Morning, ushering, on the visitation committee, teaching Vacation Bible school, acting as a leader for Boys' Brigade and Lois and I were elected to lead the Adult fellowship.

In 1976 Campus Crusade for Christ launched the international outreach called, "I Found It!" It found me and named me the Publicity Coordinator for South Jersey. This entailed meeting with ministers of various churches and with media outlets. I also found it involved making cold calls and door-to-door evangelism, things way out of my comfort zone.  A few years earlier I had been visiting churches to tell ministers they were preaching a lie and now I was knocking on doors of perfect strangers to explain what Christ could mean in their lives.

By 1977, Lois and I were Youth Ministers for Word of Life international. That is we in the photo at the top. I'm the guy in sunglasses toward the left and Lois is resting her head on my shoulder. With us are other leaders and some of the kids we served. No one here is lifting any glass in a toast. What is being held are paper towels and Windex. We were headed out to a parking lot to clean window shields, not as a fund raiser. No, we never took money for our Christian Service outings. We simply washed car windows and left a tract or if possible spoke to the driver.

If anyone reading this has ever been a youth leader they will confirm it is a very time consuming endeavor. Most of our time outside of our jobs was taken up planning and conducting meetings and outings for these teenagers. All this activity was beginning to overwhelm my wife. We weren't to learn until more than a decade later that my wife suffered from a problem that made life often difficult for her to deal with. Nonetheless she had committed to this because she knew I wanted to do it. There was also that factor that we would never be parents ourselves, so why not devote our time to these children?

God has impeccable timing. Between September 1975 through September 1977 we had been deeply involved in a lot for new babes in Christ. You talk about a crash course in James 1:22-25, this was it. But sometimes in youthful enthusiasm we did more than is healthy. But God found a way to slow us down.

Lois said, "I think I'm pregnant."

"How?" Not as dumb a question as it sounds. "I thought you had your tubes tied?"

"No, I didn't."

There was a problem. When we visited her gynecologist he refused to take her case. It was impossible for her to carry a baby to term. She was foolish getting pregnant again. It was a risk to her own life and there was no way with her history and scarring that this baby could survive.

There was a doctor at the church who heard of this situation and he arranged for her care. It was going to be difficult. She was going to have to stay in bed for the term. She could walk from the bedroom to the living room and to the bathroom when necessary, but nothing else. She had to stay off her feet, no cooking, no housework, no going out. And no guarantees this would work.

So I arranged a control center in the living room. From the sofa, where she would lay, she could control the TV. I put a cooler next to her with some food and drink so she could have lunch or snack. I took care of the housekeeping and making meals.

Fortunately, on the meal front, a group of people at Laurel Hill Bible Church formed a prayer group to pray for Lois and the baby. The women began bringing us meals in the evening.

In the dreaded fifth month, late February 1978, Lois called for me. She was losing it. I drove her the several miles to the hospital in a snow storm. Here we go again, this was a movie I'd seen too many times. There she was, in a labor room, a monitor beeping off the little heartbeats and an IV in her arm with chemicals to retard labor.

This went on a few days. A doctor came to us and said there was an experimental drug he would like to try if we agreed. It was something new called Steroids. He thought it might help strengthen the baby's lungs, but it was experimental and he couldn't say there weren't risks.

We said do it.

A couple more days passed and then the doctors came to me and said my wife was risking infection if they tried to retard delivery any longer. This baby had to come out.

And out she came yelling her little head off. The Steroids may have worked, they could hear her crying long before her head appeared. She just didn't like being wakened up so early in the morning and never would. She weighted just over 5 pounds and went right into an incubator. Her weight would drop and so Lois came home leaving the baby behind. She couldn't be released until she got back to five pounds.

Oh, how the nursery staff laughed at us when that day came and we tried to dress that little bitty girl for the first time. We had gotten the smallest baby clothes we could find, but even this was too large. We should have gotten doll dresses, I guess.

We named her Laurel Christine. Laurel in honor of those at Laurel Hill Bible Church who prayed her into this world and Christine (Little Christian) as her middle name because Christ was central to our lives.

Laurel was a person that it was said could not be born. She was and she is a very nice young lady now with a passion for helping those who can't help themselves, both human and animal. (Right - Laurel aiding Sandy victims.) Yet some may credit this to the doctor's putting Lois to bed or the injection of steroids or some other aspect of modern medicine. Some may, but Laurel's birth is not the end of this story.

To be continued...

 Laurel as VetTech at SPCA

Getting Here Part XI: You Got to get Down to get Up

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. James 5: 13-20 (NIV)

I stood by the bed saying words I would never have expected to say.

"Maybe we should give church a try again."

I expected an argument and a rejection. Religion was the past long gone.

"Where," she asked in a whisper.
"I don't know? How about that new church down the road?"

Just a few weeks ago this new church opened on the Balckwood-Clementon Road, down the hill from us and just a bit from our street. I knew nothing about it not even which denomination. It looked like many Protestant Churches, steeple on top, big cross on the front.

"Okay," she said.

What was left at this point. We had talked in the hospital and it seemed decided she would have her tubes tied while there. This was the end of the road for that dream, that persistent hope of hers to have a child of our own. I had given that hope up five years ago. Where do you go when you wake up from your dreams and find they are all nightmares?

She had wanted children and a home of her own. This didn't appear to be on the menu of our life. Children were officially an impossibility and although I had a descent job, we had not put anything away in the bank. Remember, we were going to have fun and worry about that later when we got old. 

I wasn't even writing much anymore. My last published paid article was in "Animal Lover's Magazine" a year ago. I had been promoted so-to-speak at Welded Tube. I say so-to-speak because I was still Assistant Controller, but Computer Systems Manager had been added to my duties. Between my added responsibilities, which had me on-call 24/7, and our party-hardy lifestyle there wasn't time to squeeze in any writing.

There was nowhere to go from where we were. Lois was in the deep doldrums of depression and I just didn't have any enthusiasm for anything anymore. Where was any help for us? More sex and more drink, was that the escape from misery? Most my life I was confident in myself to overcome any adversity. I was a loner, who constantly plotted my own course in life. Now I felt like a captain of a boat lost at sea in high waves, a think fog with a broken rudder and a leaky haul. Yeah, it was that bad.

But there was a God. I heard his voice in that baby's heartbeat. I didn't know much about Him, but I felt that maybe church might help in finding out. What was the worse that could happen, more disillusionment? So the next Sunday we went.

We sort of dragged ourselves up the walk that day. I guess we both thought about our past experiences visiting churches, but at the door were a couple of people who smiled and asked us our names. Another man came and handed us a bulletin and led us to a pew halfway down the aisle. It was a compromise. I like to sit down front, Lois prefers the back, so we sat in the middle. Another man came over and introduced himself and welcomed us. No one was glaring at us as if we were interlopers on their private island.

It was then I glanced at the bulletin. At the top was the church name, Laurel Hill Bible Church, which really told me nothing. It was the next line that really caught my eye, "An Independent Fundamentalist Church". 

Whoa, baby, what had I gotten us into? My immediate inclination was to get up and run for the exit, but that would be too embarrassing. We'd just sit and ride it out if somewhat nervously. My idea of a Fundamentalist Church was people rolling down the aisles and kissing snakes. These were going to be a  bunch of Bible-thumping fanatics, brainwashed zombies, pie-in-the-sky freaks.

Although, no one looked very freakish. No one was waving some tract at us. People were just saying good morning and nice to see you and being just plain friendly everyday people.

The Pastor gave a sermon on James 5 that morning. I sat stunned. I sat sweating. I sat feeling he was preaching directly and only to me. I had never felt that way in a church service before in my life. How could this man know so much about me? At the end he gave an alder call, something I learned he always did. No way I was going to walk up to the front. That would have been so humiliating, but when he asked if anyone felt the need for prayer I did raise my shaking hand.

It was on the next September 1975 Tuesday afternoon I went into my little writing den at our apartment. I got down on my knees. I felt like crying. My whole body was quivering. I wasn't certain what to say. When I was 14 and in the Boy Scouts one of my patrol members was also a friend. His name was Jim Dawson and he was pretty religious. He often talked about Jesus during campouts. Once he gave me this card to put in my wallet. It said, "If you were to die tonight where would you be tomorrow?" This was followed by H______. You were supposed to fill in the blank as either Heaven or Hell.  I asked him, "How am I supposed to know that?" I was kind of angry about it.  I told him I thought I was a pretty good guy, so I would hope heaven, but didn't see how you could really know. 

I guess I remembered some of what Jim had said way back then because I stuttered out a pretty disjoined prayer asking God to forgive me and for Jesus to come into my heart.

I'm sure what I said wasn't elegant, but it worked. I knew it the moment I stood up. It would be hard to make someone who hasn't experience it understand how different I felt. I felt lighter. I also soon discovered other changes. Now I wanted to read the Bible. I did still have one about the place. More amazing, when I read it I was understanding it. I knew a lot of the stories, of course, I had been forced to Sunday School and I had seen those Hollywood movies like the Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba ( oh yeah, that movie was real Scriptural) and King of Kings. Reading the Bible was a struggle with all those thees and thous, begots and begats and other arcane words that I didn't understand. The Bible had been mostly gobbledygook to me. Now it made sense when I read it. I could understand it, not just the surface stories, but the shades of meaning in every verse.

On the next Sunday, humiliating or not, I walked down the aisle at the alder call.

Now some might discount any real miracle here. I don't see it that way. If God could open my eyes to His Word, then he could do anything. I was to find out that was true in the next few years. What God was to do in Lois and my life was impossible. If nothing else, what was to happen is proof positive of the power of faith in Jesus Christ and the mercy of God.

To be continued...

The song, "Help Me" written by Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers (partial lyrics below) seemed so apropos to where I once was and how I asked that I have shared it here. The little video is Johnny cash singing it and I think cash captured that voice of the desperate man calling out to God better than anyone.

Oh, lord, Help Me walk
Another mile, just one more mile;
I'm tired of walkin' all alone.

And lord, Help Me to smile
Another smile, just one more smile;
Don't think I can do things on my own.

I never thought I needed help before;
Thought that I could get by - by myself.
But now I know I just can't take it any more.
And with a humble heart, on bended knee,
I'm beggin' You please for help.

"Help Me" by Larry Gatlin


This is Johnny Cash singing Larry Gatlin's song "Help Me, which captures the essence of a broken man turning to God. 

A Lost Year; A Year of Losses

When I was a child a Billy Wilder film won the Academy Award. It was "The Lost Weekend". I didn't see it during the first screenings. I was only four years old. I saw it years later, probably on TV and it became a favorite that I viewed several times over. I even read the novel it was based upon. The autobiographical novel was written by Charles R. Jackson.

For those not familiar with the story it concerns a young alcoholic writer's five-day drinking binge. During this period he descends lower and lower into the gutter, hocking his typewriter for booze money and ending up in the DT ward of Bellevue.

My lost year was nothing quite like that and certainly had nothing to do with alcohol. It mostly came about by events beyond my control.

'Twenty-twelve was bad from the get-go. I had become dissatisfied with the direction my church was going and left it a few months earlier and the job I had at the end of 2011 left me. Thus I began the year unemployed and somewhat adrift spiritually. I am a Christian, a true believer in the salvation of Jesus and the truth of the Bible, but when disconnected from a body of brothers and sisters in Christ tends to drift backward into my sins. I began the year already with a sense of lost...and with a feeling of nausea.

I was sick most of January. I hadn't been really ill in years, couldn't remember the last time. It must have been back in the days I worked at Wilmington Trust, back in the last millennium. But I began 2012 sick.  It went away after a week, took a little Carrabean cruise or something, then by late February returned to make me sick again twice over.

Not long into the first month of the year I also lost my ability to take the long walks that generally began my days. These are times of reflection as well as physical exercise. I can get away into the quite of our many parks and clear my mind. But one morning early on I awoke with a grapefruit in my left knee or what appeared to be some sort of bulbous melon.

It really hurt with one of those pains that doesn't go away no matter what you do. Lying down, standing up or sitting, the knee throbbed away. I could barely hobble about the house upon it and driving a car was pure agony. I couldn't ben tie my own shoes.  I certainly wasn't going to be hiking up any rocky trails in the Piedmont.

As we shuffled moaning into the drear days of February the grapefruit began to deflate. Healing came slowly, but came. My knees began to match each other, ugly twins indeed, but neither bloated or painful. But my ankle was.

As if he had been displaced by bursitis, angry man Author Itis returned taking vengeance upon my ankles. I still could not walk. I had to bear a few more weeks of agony, but by the Ides of March I too was marching forth with something of my normal gate. It seemed I was about to resume the life I had become use to living.

Then on the first Wednesday of April the phone rang at about 9:00 AM and my way of life simply disappeared. Caller ID id'd my parents number. They never called me this early in the day. My first thought was, "dad died". It was going to be the call I had anticipated for the last couple of years, but when I answered it was my dad's gravelly voice that answered back.

"Your mother's had a stroke. I want you ta come up here." (Pictured left, my dad and mom on one of the last days of their lives.)

Thus began a seven month period where I disappeared into handling my parent's affairs, seeking a nursing home that could care for them both, dealing with the slow moving government agencies and then with the deaths of first my mother and then my dad with a two week period.

By that point my wife's own health was a concern, our financial situation was deteriorating and two of my favorite cats also died. I also lost my Blog domain names.

I lost the Blog domains because Wilmington Trust had been taken over by another bank, which issued all new cards. My old Wilmington Trust MasterCard became this bank's Visa. My domain names meanwhile came up for renewal in mid-summer and dealing as I was as my parents now, I forgot to revise my automatic payment info. The Domain licenser's payment request was denied against my old now invalid card.

I did not find this out until months later, of course, because I had stopped writing. I am hoping I have reached a point I can write again.

This has become a lost year in a way and a year of many losses. But in the midst of all this pain and turmoil I found prayers answered and assurance that God was always nearby. I found a new church and a new spirit. I learned that what we cling to so tightly in this world can very daily slip away. I saw how material possessions disappear in the wink of an eye as I had to dispose of my parents belonging to meet the requirements of Medicaid. When the died all that was left were a few boxes of clothing, which I donated to Goodwill.

I saw this lesson again this December as I joined the Disaster Relief Team at my new church and spent weekends doing mud-outs in homes flooded during Hurricane Sandy. All the possessions of the owners ruined and stacked haphazardly on the sidewalk for trash pickup. The houses empty shells.

You sometimes suffer in this world and you can easily slip into self-pity, then you step out into the places where others have suffered even more and you understand why we must lend a hand to our neighbor.

This was a lost year and a year of losses for many, but as for me, I know even more that God has my back and God can lift me up.



PSALM 116: VERSES 1-8 (KJV) 

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.

Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
 Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Yes, our God is merciful.
 The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
 Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

 For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.

                    

Gone

There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. John 21:2-3

Gone.

Well, they had thought so. They had been there, somewhere, peeking out from the corner of windows maybe, watching the procession. A couple of them, like John, had dared to be up close at the end.

Expecting what?

When those soldiers had shown up at the Garden, what had they expected then? Not this, certainly, no, this was not what they had signed on for back then. This was the Messiah, they thought, he wasn't going to die and go away and nothing change.

But he didn't exactly go away, did he? He rose from the dead. They had visited the empty tomb and more importantly, they had all seen him, twice, in the last couple of weeks. He came briefly and went. He was gone again. Where?

Where ever it still wasn't what they expected.

The Messiah was supposed to free them from enslavement to others and make them a great nation again. The Messiah was supposed to be a great warrior king like David. They expected it to happen in a great uprising, perhaps even with the Angels of God on great steeds made visible behind them, as had happened once in the centuries past.

Some of them who were there on that first Passover journey thought it would be then. When he threw over those tables, chased out the desecraters, that would begin it. It didn't. Over the next few years, trudging back and forth through the dust they waited for his command for Heaven to strike down their oppressors, but no great lightening bolts ever did. And in the end they dragged him away like any ordinary man and killed him - shamefully.

Yeah, somehow he had come back to life, but he still didn't do what they expected. You would think someone dead yesterday and alive today could rouse up the forces to overthrow even Rome. Instead he quietly said, "I am sending you."

Sending us? What are we going to do? Who will listen to us? It's a scary world out there, a dangerous world. Those people who hung you on that cross might crucify us if we so much as talk too loudly. Where do we go? Who will follow? We followed him and lost our place even within our own religion. We are viewed by the priests, by the Pharisees, by even some in our families as blasphemers. Many of those who once listened to you, when you stood on the hills and preached, now see us as fools who they want nothing to do with.

And you tell us you are sending us that whom we forgive will be forgiven. Well, who in this world will forgive us? Frankly, it would be better to shut our mouths and keep a low profile. We saw you alive again. We believe that, but maybe it is a personal thing nobody else wants to hear.

So I'm going fishing. I'm going to do something I like to do that will occupy my mind with something other than all that is confusing me and filling me with fear. I'm not good at this Assistant Messiah stuff. What I'm good at is catching fish.

Except me and my fellow fishermen have been at it all night and haven't caught so much as a cold. He came along one day back in the beginning and told us, "Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men." Now we can't even catch a fish.


It wasn't very different for Peter and those other Apostles on that day 2,000 years ago then for we Christians today. Jesus had a fling being a rock star for a time, but now the whole area knew he'd been brutally killed. He was a nice fellow, he said some wise things now and again, but you saw what happened. The State certainly didn't want anything to do with him. You got a little cult that thinks some itinerant preacher came back to life, fine. Just keep it to yourself. There is no room for religion in government, except for Caesar as God. And as for the rest of the people, well, believe in fairy tales if you wish, but don't bother me with your fantasies.

If I tell you Jesus is going to return -- soon -- will I not face the same disbelief, skepticism, rejection and possible danger that Peter and the Apostles faced on the day they decided to go fishing? I understand exactly how they felt. But what happened?

When the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore...


What we must not lose sight of is that when morning comes Jesus will be standing there. We know that. So why fear? No one can stop that morning from coming and we will be there on that Sonrise even if those of this world kill us. And we have the Holy Spirit within us. Look what that small cult did once they had the Spirit in them.


Today is Easter. To much of the world this is furry bunnies and colored eggs. To we Christians it is everything.

Illustration was drawn by the author when he was 16.

The Heavier the Cross, the Stronger the Shoulders by Rachel King

These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don't repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don't be so naive and self-confident. You're not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it's useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he'll never let you be pushed past your limit; he'll always be there to help you come through it. 1 Corinthians 10:11-13 (The Message)

For the first time, I am welcoming a guest writer to “Night Writing in the Morning Light. This article submitted to me by Rachel King seems apropos to our current little series on depression. Hopefully Ms King will appear occasionally at this site with her perspective. Below is some information about Rachel taken from the site for which she writes regularly as well a brief blurb of that site’s purpose.

       "Ms. King recently graduated from the University of Houston and has experience in the print journalism world. She was involved in many different Christian organizations while attending college. She uses this to her advantage while researching and producing Christian material for this website. Ms. King focus is to provide adequate and reliable information to the Christian community at large. Her hobbies include being active in her church community, knitting and watching a good movie.

       "Christian Universities is devoted to providing Christian students who are considering attending an online Christian university with an explanation of their choices and reviews of the costs and benefits."

The Heavier the Cross, the Stronger the Shoulders

by

Rachel King

Being human means we must undergo pain and suffering; no one goes through life with just positive experiences alone, and in fact, some of us endure more trials and tribulations than others. If we ask the question Why, we would have no answer. How do we know why certain people are chosen to suffer while others are not? The Bible tells us that God has a reason for everything that happens, that it is all part of his greater plan. So when something bad happens, perhaps you were chosen to be at the receiving end because:

·      God knows that you are strong enough to bear it. He has given you a cross that your shoulders can carry. If someone else with a weaker mentality had suffered this trouble, they would have broken down under the strain. Remember, the heavier the cross, the stronger the shoulders that God has chosen to bear it.

·      God trusts that you have the courage and strength to solve the problem and get past it. He has given you the tools needed to meet troubles head on and tackle them without batting an eyelid. He has made you a shrewd, mature and clever person who knows how to solve problems and get past them.

·      Troubles make us stronger people; they condition us to be able to take the ups with the downs and the rough with the smooth; and they teach us to take things in their stride instead of being affected by trials.

·      They bring us closer to God. It’s a sad but true fact of life that we think of God and become closer to Him only when we’re affected by troubles. We hardly ever pray when we’re happy and satisfied with life, even to offer gratitude and praise the Lord. So perhaps a small setback is just what you need to renew your relationship with God.

·      This setback is just a stepping-stone to achieving greater things. When I had to undergo knee surgery, little did I know that it was the foundation for me gaining stronger legs and a slimmer body. All the physical therapy in the gym to get my knee flexible and mobile again made me reduce my weight significantly and completely changed the way I looked. So in essence, my torn ligament was a blessing in disguise, a blessing I had to wait a year to realize.

So the next time you feel a problem is insurmountable, just close your eyes and pray for strength to accept and solve it, and you can rest assured God will show you a way out. After all, if He has led you to it, believe that He will lead you out of it too.

 

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Rachel King, who writes on the topic of Online Christian Universities . Rachel welcomes your comments at her email address: r.king8383@rediffmail.com.

Become a Christian and be Fat, Happy and Rich.

So when you become a bonified, true blue, born again Christian all your sufferings, problems and troubles will disappear. And if you send some money to those fellows in shiny suits and polyester hair on TV, you'll get rich and prosperous because "you can't out give God" and Jesus came "to give you life more abundantly".

Well, if you think that then you haven't been reading the Bible. 

It's true Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (King James Version). But He wasn't talking about owning bigger homes and cars and nicer clothes.  He wasn't promising we'd have money to iron. He was talking about our spiritual life. Here is more of the passage: 

Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  John 10:7-10 (New International Version)

(The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10 (King James Version)

I cringe at these "prosperity preachers". They do harm to Christians and insult God. They are the thief that comes to steal, kill and destroy. We can certainly see how they steal by distorting the Word of God, but they also kill people's faith and they put up stumbling blocks to people who might be seeking, but seeing these charlatans. Someone who is an outright crook is bad. Someone dressed in faux-righteousness promising false hope is much worse. They steal souls.

Does Jesus's life read like a how to succeed in business biography? What did he say to one man who asked to follow and live like him? "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:20 and also Luke 9:58 KJV) Yes, it certainly sounds as if following Jesus is living the fat, happy and rich life.

There was another time when an already rich man asked how he could follow Jesus.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’"

"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."

 Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

 At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  Mark 10:17-24

I came to Christ in September 1975 a few months after we had lost our seventh child. Something changed immediately after I'd prayed. It would be difficult to explain and harder yet for others to understand unless they have also experienced it. It was not a change to my circumstances, it was a change in me, inside.

And then, of course, I became fat, happy and rich.

Well, maybe a bit fatter. Happier, that too, but not in the way people would usually describe happy. Rich, I'm still waiting. In fact, I got poorer.

Next time, I will explain what happened and answer the question whether Christians suffer. 

As a Christian Bees Won't Sting and Colds Won't Catch

I have heard just such nonsense preached. I have heard people told they were suffering because their faith was weak. Who has suffered more than Christ? Was his faith weak?

When you become a Christian the Son shines in you, but the sun shines on you and the rain falls upon you just as it does on the worse terrorists that stalk the earth.  You are just as likely to get your face sunburned and your feet wet as they are. You don't escape earthly suffering by being born again anymore than the criminal who professes sudden Christianity receives a get-out-of-jail-free card. But Christians do receive a get-out-of-Hell card.

If you think Christianity is a hedge against the slings and arrows of this world, then you haven't read your Bible. (You miss a lot of truth if you don't read the Bible.)  Read the stories of all the great names of the Bible, then tell me all those who didn't suffer?

Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.   James 5:10-11

In 1975, when I became a Christian, we had lost 7 children in 14 years of marriage. In late 1977 when my wife became pregnant for the eigthth time it came as a surprise to me. She had claimed her tubes were tied after the last time. She lied. 

This wasn't the biggest shock. It was when her obstetrician refused to take her case and others we consulted would not either. No one wanted this case with her history. They told her it was impossible, she could nevert have a baby. But someone in the church knew a Christian Doctor and he took the case and the church prayed. 

But we'll discuss those details another time. Just let me say our first child to live beyond a brief few moments was born on March 1, 1978. We have two other children  and I'll discuss those circumstances another time as well. All I want to illustrate here is in the face of an impossibility the improbable happened.

And we all lived happily ever after in the enchanted forest of the Spirit where the bees won't sting and you don't catch colds. 

Not exactly.

By mid-1978 the company employing me decided to close shop and move to Chicago. I was asked to go, but did not want to move so far. In November 1978 I was proffered a new job elsewhere, which I took and it was not to be a happy choice. With it we had to move from where we were and the church that had prayed and helped us so much. And then not two years later, this new employer decided to give my job to someone else for reasons having nothing to do with my own success or failure. This was quickly followed by a series of difficult events.

We had our second child, who was not expected to live, but did so after nearly a month in intensive care. My father-in-law had a seizure, died, was brought back to life, but left only a shell on machines, which it fell to us to turn off. Our home flooded and was totally destroyed inside.

Being Christians did not protect us from the type of loss and sufferings that befall all members of mankind. We are talking about faith, a belief in Christ as Savior and a striving to understand and grown in a relationship with God, not in magic. Such tribulations can bring a person to despair, as had been the case a few years earlier. We came to salvation from the depths of depression and hopelessness and our burdens were lightened. So it was when this series of setbacks hit us. If we had not come to this faith, I am not certain we would have survived what we went through between 1975 and 1981.

In an earlier posts I asked if you could reconcile these two verses:

Matt 11:29-30-- Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." 

Matt 16:24-25 -- Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 

Comparing the difficult experiences of my life before and after being a Christian have taught me what these verses mean. 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:1