Month: December 2019

Large Family

Exodus 12:37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children.

Everyone typically gets together with family for the holidays.  Do you have a large family?  If I add all my aunts, uncles and cousins together on both my mom and dad’s side of the family, we total about 58.  Our family is not huge, but it is still hard to keep up with what everyone is doing.

It says in the Bible that when the Israelites left Egypt, there were 600,000 men.  Scholars believe that the total number of Israelites that left, including women and children, is more like 2.4 million!  Now that is a big family.  Have you ever thought about the logistics of moving 2.4 million people?  It’s not like they could load up in a bunch of cars, buses, planes or even a bunch of trains because they wouldn’t fit, not to mention they didn’t have those back then.  In fact, that many people wouldn’t even fit in AT&T Stadium where the Cowboys play football.  The stadium only holds 100,000 people. 

What about communicating with that many people?  How on earth did Moses connect with 2.4 million people to let them know it was time to go?  Sacrifice a sheep.  Paint your door frame.   Roast the meat.  Eat fully dressed.  There were lots of details that needed to be relayed to the Israelites that night with very little time to spread the news. 

To try to put it in perspective, there are about 2.4 million people that live in the city of Dallas and the city of Fort Worth combined.  Now imagine that there was one man in charge of leading us all out of Texas.  If we started marching together in a single file line, the line would be 450 miles long.  If we started marching in a line that was 100 people wide, the line would still be about 45 miles long.  What I’m trying to do is help you imagine how incredibly large this group of people was.  It was crazy big. 

Over and over again, after the Israelites left Egypt, they started to doubt God.  They complained about the provisions.  They even stopped worshiping God and started worshiping idols.  I wonder if I was on a 40-year camping trip with 2.4 million people, would I start to grumble too?  But then I remember that God showed up.  He was a cloud of smoke during the day and a pillar of fire at night. He parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape the Egyptian army.  He sent manna from the sky so that they were not hungry.  He provided water from a rock so that they were not thirsty.  If I witnessed all these miraculous signs and wonders that God performed in Egypt against Pharaoh and on the journey in the desert, I hope I would have stayed faithful.

What about you?  Do you sometimes find it hard to stay faithful?  Christians still have struggles today, but we should never allow difficulties and unpleasant circumstances turn us away from trusting God.  Proverbs 3:5 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”  You may not understand why God is taking you on a journey through the desert, but your job is not to understand His plan.  Your job is to trust the Lord.  Lean into God when you have doubts.  Look for Him in your everyday life.  If you seek Him, you will find Him.

Dear Lord, thank you for showing up in my life when I have doubts.  Please help me to stay faithful to you even during the difficult times in my life.  Amen

Believe

Deuteronomy 11:1 & 19 (NIV) 1 “You must love the Lord your God and always obey his requirements, decrees, regulations, and commands.”  19 “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Tis the season to be jolly! This time of year is magical for children and adults alike.  Such beautiful decorations in the stores and on homes; the excitement and anticipation of presents and surprises. Have you seen those cute signs in red and green or plaid that say “Believe”?  They are referring to Santa Claus, but I always imagine that they are referring to Jesus.

The story of Santa Claus is told over and over again to children year after year.  They make cartoons about him, movies about him, clothes with his face on them.  You see him in advertisements and hear his “Ho, ho, ho” on radio commercials.  Now imagine if we did the same thing for Jesus.  What if every child knew about Jesus the way every child knows about Santa? 

Maybe you can’t personally reach EVERY child, but you can reach YOUR child.  The Bible says in Deuteronomy 11 that we must love the Lord and obey his commands.  Then it goes on to say that as parents, we need to teach these things to our children.  We should do this at home, when we are traveling, in the morning and in the evening.  Basically, any time and all the time.  If we see a moment to teach our children about Jesus, we should do it.

We should teach them that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to save us.  But Jesus didn’t come as a man.  He came as a baby.  Jesus has been a toddler, a pre-teen, a teenager and a young adult.  He knows what we are going through every day.  We need to teach our children to talk to Jesus and cultivate a relationship with Him.  Finally, we need to teach our children that Jesus took our place on the cross and died for our sins.  What an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G gift God has given us in Jesus. 

So, next time you see a cute Christmas decoration that says “Believe”, take that moment to teach your child something about Jesus and his love for us.

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to save us from our sins. Help us as parents to remember to teach our children about your love and Jesus’s sacrifice for us.  Amen

Do You Have a Village?

James 1:2-3 (MSG) Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.  You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So, don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work, so you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way.

This has been a rough week for me.  In addition to being a single parent of three teenage boys (which is hard enough), I have a full time job, I’m shopping for Christmas presents and I had something planned after work every day this week.  I haven’t finished decorating our house for Christmas, I haven’t had time to go grocery shopping and I haven’t cleaned the house in two weeks.  UGH!  But the icing on the cake this week . . . I let my work family down.  I scheduled a new photographer for both of our Client Christmas Luncheons and it was a total flop.  The photographer was unable to get her equipment working at either luncheon and now she is refusing to refund our money.  What a mess.  I felt just awful because we really wanted to have something special for our clients and I failed.  Afterwards, I felt beat down, sad, frustrated and tired.

After work that day I went to a friend’s house for game night.  When I walked in, they could tell the sparkle in my eye was missing.  Before we start playing our game, we always go around the room and ask for prayer requests.  All I had to do is say I had a rough week and the tears started to flow. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  My friends prayed over me that night three different times.  My spirit was lifted and my sadness disappeared and I was ready to take on a new day.  I still have to deal with the aftermath of the failed photographer, but I know that my community of Christian friends are praying for me.

So that started me thinking . . . Do you have a community of Christ-filled friends?  A “village” of people that want the best for you?  Life is hard and life alone is even harder. When tests and challenges come at you from all sides, I want to pray for you.  I want to be your village.  So, if you would like to be included in my prayers, please let me know.  I will pray for you, neighbor!

Dear heavenly Father, thank you for this week.  Thank you for the pressure that forced my faith-life into the open.  I pray that everyone who needs prayer will boldly ask for it. Amen.

Way Maker

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

There is a worship song we sang at church last week called “Way Maker”.  A few lines of the song say “Even when I don’t see it, he’s working.  Even when I don’t feel it, he’s working.  He never stops, he never stops working.”  This song has been on my heart all week.  I knew I wanted to write about it, but I wasn’t sure exactly how.  Then God gave me this Bible verse and it all came together. 

God has a plan and His plan is that everyone comes to know Christ Jesus.  So, you and I, as Christians, go about our everyday life but behind the scenes, the Holy Spirit is working on people.  He is working, even when you don’t see it.  He is working, even when you don’t feel it.  He is working on your neighbor.  The neighbor that doesn’t mow his lawn and leaves his trash cans out two days too long.  He is working on the funny co-worker that sits across the office from you.  He is working on the total stranger that rides the same train to work as you do.  He is working on your brother.  He never stops working and you are part of his plan.  He is going to use you, because you have been called according to his purpose.

If you are a Christian, the Bible says that ALL THINGS that have happened to you will be used by God for good.  Not just isolated incidents, ALL THINGS.  But that doesn’t mean that everything that happens to you will be good.  The pain of loss, the sorrow of depression and the sting of rejection can be used for good too.  Because you have experienced those things yourself, you can recognize them in the friends, family, co-workers and strangers you encounter every day. 

Then comes the cool part, the Holy Spirit will do what he does best and put that person in your path.  All you have to do is be aware of the people around you.  Look up.  Smile.  Say hello.  Have a conversation and let the love of Jesus shine out of you.  You may be the only Jesus that person sees today.  Then when the time is right and that person is ready, invite them to your church.  Most people that have never been to a church say they have never been invited to church.  So, let’s get that obstacle out of the way.  Invite them.  Then let the Holy Spirit do the rest.

Lord, thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to help me with your plan.  Please open my eyes to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the people that are all around me every day so that I can be the physical hands and feet of Jesus on earth.  Amen