Delightsome Land

Let them turn the other cheek to those who strike them and accept the insults of their enemies. — Lamentations 3:30 When people get angry or defensive they tend to make mistakes. But nobody can be defensive with their palms up.   Go ahead and try it. Right now, wherever you are. Set your hands on your knees and turn your palms toward the sky. Clinch your fists. Most people could get angry at a grapefruit when their fists are clinched. Something about the hardwiring that God gave each of us links the position of our bodies and position of our hearts. I’m not sure why we’re wired this way, but I rarely have a client get frustrated or confused or get tempted to exaggerate or tell a lie when his palms are up. I learned this technique from Jesus actually. I used to walk around with my fists clinched, defensive, afraid people were going to take advantage of me. There are also many evils in the world that caused me to clinch my fists. I wanted to be angry and swing at the horribl...

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:  Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. 1 Peter 5:8-9 "Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" 1 Peter 5:8-9 https://www.bible.com/1/1PE.5.9 "Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" 1 Peter 5:8-9 https://www.bible.com/1/1PE.5.9 "Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the w...

Meditation He is a creature you would probably meet only in your worst nightmares, if even there. He is a man possessed with demons. They drive him to violence. They drive him to cry out like a wild dog howling in the night. They drive him to the solitary places — in the hills, among the tombs. There he froths about like a rabid animal, living on the ragged, outer fringe of humanity. Luke tells us it’s been a long time since this man has worn clothes or lived in a house. There are no houses in Palestine for men like him. No hospitals. No asylums. Like jackals they are left to roam this no-man’s-land on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Their only refuge is the holes hewn in the hillside, used to bury the dead. His hair is a matted tangle of filth. His body is scarred white around his wrists and ankles, where manacles once tried to restrain him. His haggard body is gashed with the self-inflicted punishment of stones. Barely a vestige of humanity remains. How did this image ...

Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. — 1 Corinthians 3:7 Who is the seemingly impossible person in your life whom you must interact with on a regular basis? There’s someone like that in everyone’s life. Perhaps we work with them, serve with them, gave birth to them, married them, or go to school with them. These people are often socially challenged or just plain self-centered and stubborn. We make various attempts to develop a harmonious relationship, pleading with God to enable us to love this person with His love. Nothing works. Even if we managed to sow a single seed of love, we sense that a hard heart, disinterest, maybe pain, or even fear will keep that seed from growing or even taking root. But just as plants do grow in a rock garden, we may be surprised by what blossoms in a person’s hardened heart. Rock gardens are a great solution to sloping land or other problem areas in a yard. The design and installation t...

Tempted I felt powerless. I tried to do right, but then I failed. I tried again. Then I failed again, and again, and again. You can handle this on your own , I thought to myself. But my sin kept taunting me, teasing me, testing me, until I finally said, “Why bother fighting it?” Then, like a dark illusion that had made its conquest in my life, it almost immediately became a cold and aloof stranger, leaving me feeling empty, regretful, and chronically unhappy. It stole my joy, consumed my thoughts, and distracted me from the presence and promises of God, in whom true happiness resides. We all struggle with something. And it’s that area of weakness that the enemy targets every time. It doesn’t matter how mature we are in Christ, how old we are, or how long we’ve served God; we will all be tempted. And we will all fall short at some point. Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. But that doesn’t give us a f...

The journey of genuine transformation to emotionally healthy spirituality begins with a commitment to allow yourself to feel . It is an essential part of our humanity and unique personhood as men and women made in God’s image. Scripture reveals God as an emotional being who feels — a Person. Having been created in his image, we too have the gift of experiencing emotions. Consider the following: “ God saw that it was good... very good” (Genesis 1:25, Genesis 1:31). In other words, God delighted, relished, beamed with delight over us. “The Lord regretted that He had made human beings on the earth, and His heart was deeply troubled” (Genesis 6:6). “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). “For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant ” (Isaiah 42:14). “The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back until He fully accomplishes the purposes of His heart” (Jeremiah ...

It does not help to try to quantify suffering, I have learned along the way. That the tsunami of 2004 killed far more people than the tsunami of 2011 or that more students died at Virginia Tech than at Sandy Hook Elementary School does not make one event more tragic than the other. Likewise, to the person with a migraine headache or chronic fatigue syndrome, it does not help to point to someone with a worse condition, say, AIDS or the Ebola virus. All suffering is suffering. As C. S. Lewis said, there is no such thing as “the sum of the world’s suffering,” an abstraction of the philosophers. There are simply individual people who hurt . And who wonder why God permits it.  We experience suffering alone — it “islands” us — and for the people involved, scale doesn’t matter so much. Even a mega-disaster like the tsunami zooms in personally: a child swept away from a kindergarten playground, a family business destroyed in an instant, a teenager terrified by the aftershocks that hit w...

This is one of the moments in Old Testament history that I would have loved to see for myself...  Twenty years had passed since the time Judah and his brothers sold Joseph into slavery. He had no way of knowing that Joseph had risen above a series of misfortunes to become the prime minister of Egypt. During Joseph’s rise to political power, he engineered a massive government food campaign to store up grain reserves for seven years in order to survive a predicted seven-year famine. Consequently, starving multitudes from all over the Mediterranean world choked the roads and harbors of Egypt, hoping to buy food. The famine hit Jacob’s family especially hard. So hard that he sent Joseph’s brothers to Egypt for provisions. He refused to send Benjamin, however. His youngest son was Rachel’s only surviving son. Having lost Joseph, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing another favored son. After a dry, dusty journey, Joseph’s brothers stood among the throngs of people seeking salvatio...

Has there been a time when no matter how passionately you prayed, God seemed at best indifferent, if not absent? Perhaps your experience was colored by clinical depression, as mine was. Or perhaps there were other reasons for your separation anxiety with God. Let’s take a look at a few other reasons we feel cut off from God. Our Behavior  There are times in our lives when God withdraws His presence because He wants us to pay attention to the destructive path we are on. God loves us, but He’s a holy God and He’s not going to indulge us when we’re living in a way that contradicts His Word. I received a letter one day from a woman who wanted to know why God was not answering her prayers. She said she needed guidance, but God did not seem to be listening to her. Then she outlined her situation. She told me she was sleeping with three men, and she wanted God to show her which one was the right one for her. Once I got over my initial shock, I prayed for wisdom and understanding. I d...