Resolved

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“I do not run without a definite goal; I do not flail around like one beating the air.”—1 Corinthians 9:26, Amplified

It can be easy to talk yourself out of making resolutions for the new year, especially when research shows that many are broken after the first month anyway. Why bother? But when you’re walking in the adventure that is God’s kingdom, you quickly realize that He is all about resolve, intentionality and purpose when it comes to our destiny and our everyday lives…

“For we are His workmanship [His own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us].”

—Ephesians 2:9-11, Amplified

Which means there is always one resolution truly worth pursuing, a resolve "to decide firmly on a course of action; a firm determination to do something"—getting to know God more and more so that our lives will walk more and more in paths that reflect His goodness and love.

Perfect? Like all other resolutions, this one will be broken within the first month, if not sooner. Potholes, misfires, and wanting do-overs along the way will be a given. But the difference between this resolve and all the other resolutions that people will make on January 1 is that a broken resolution in the hands of the Redeemer is not a failure. Because God’s great grip of grace, how He loves keeping His promise of making all things new, and how He loves continually singing “Perseverance!” over us from January to December, will trump every epic trip and stumble, every time.

In fact, some of the best resolutions we can make for a new year are not resolutions at all, but prayers—a reminder (and relief) that all the outcomes ahead will be in His hands, not ours:

“God, teach me lessons for living so I can stay the course;

Give me insight so I can do what You tell me—my whole life one long, obedient response.

Guide me down the road of Your commandments; I love traveling this freeway!

Give me a bent for Your words of wisdom, and not for piling up loot.

Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets; invigorate me on the pilgrim way.

Affirm Your promises to me—promises made to all who fear You.

Deflect the harsh words of my critics—but what You say is always good.

See how hungry I am for Your counsel;

Preserve my life through Your righteous ways.”

—Psalm 119-33-40, Message

For a new year, even just for today, so be it, Lord.

“Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.”—Jonathan Edwards

[ADAPTED FROM 12-28-14]

Lessons from a Deer Crossing

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"As the deer pants longingly for the water brooks, So my soul pants longingly for You, O God."—Psalm 42:1, Amplified

It is amazing how often what we see everyday that seems routine and matter-of-fact can be a type and shadow of something eternal and essential. 

Like deer crossing signs on the highway. The message is loud and clear: slow down and pay attention.

But how do they know? How do they know that deer like to cross along this particular stretch of highway and not that one? Researchers at Penn State University learned that deer don't usually cross the highway randomly but use known crossing sites taught by those that have gone before them. “Deer didn’t just approach the closest fence section and then decide to cross. It wasn’t just chance that brought them to a particular place. They were seeking them out.”

Further, deer tend to cross the road for two primary reasons: they’re being chased or, depending on the season, they are in pursuit of relationship...

"...the report of His power spread even faster, and vast crowds came to hear Him preach and to be healed of their diseases. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer."

—Luke 5:15-16, NLT

...The root word of the place to which Jesus, and deer, often withdrew is “wild-deer-ness”—a place inhabited only by wild animals like deer, or simply any place where there are no people. No noise. No distractions.

We are never told in the Gospels exactly why Jesus went to the wilderness other than to pray, and that He did so as was His custom. For guidance on choosing disciples? For wisdom on where to minister next? To get away from the never ending pressing in of the crowd and to seek intimacy with His Father without distraction and noise? Probably yes, yes and yes. After all, He once said,  “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”—John 5:19

The great and wonderful mystery of it all is that in one sense, because Jesus is God in the flesh, it would seem that He didn’t need to do any of those things. And yet in Love, He did so anyway, to leave an example for all of us who would follow in His footsteps...

“I am the vine, you are the branches—apart from Me,

you can do nothing.”—John 15:1

...Especially in this hectic month, when people and events and demands are pressing in on all sides, and on top of all the other craziness of the world and daily life, it is good—no, essential—to follow the deer and find that known crossing site of the deep woods, or the woodworking shop, or even a favorite chair in a quiet room, and make it our custom, too, to seek it out regularly.

And pray. And seek guidance and wisdom. And love. And exhale. And be still. And just be. And none of it to merely escape or live passively but to be refueled, like the deer at the brook, to go on in wonderful pursuit of Him, with all we've got.

It could be the greatest gift any of us receive (or re-open) this or any year.

"The pursuit of God is not a part-time, weekend exercise. If it is, chances are you will experience a part-time, weekend freedom. Abiding requires a kind of staying power. The pursuit is relentless. It hungers and thirsts. It pants as the deer after the mountain brook. It takes the kingdom by storm...The pursuit of God is a pursuit of passion. Indifference will not do. To abide in the Word is to hang on tenaciously. A weak grip will soon slip away. Discipleship requires staying power. We sign up for duration. We do not graduate until heaven." - R. C. Sproul

In the Moment

"Should I _____?"

"Wouldn't it be better if I had______?"

"Is _____ what I'm supposed to be doing, and is this it?"

"What if I try ______ over there instead?" 

It's actually a good thing to be asking most of these probing questions, of yourself and of God, as a sort of discipleship tune-up. Simply because it's easy to wander off course and realize you sometimes need a two-by-four awakening to realize you've been fixing your eyes on what really doesn't matter all that much after all. Like that thing you wished you'd never bought as soon as you walked out of the store...

"Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough."

- Emily Dickinson

...Contentment may be about being satisfied with having just enough of just about anything, but maybe more importantly, it is not about "stuff" at all but about being satisfied with place and purpose — where we are in actual location, career, relationships, or in station of life at any given time. 

Because that is where God has us at the moment, and the greatest sense of contentment that I could ever know is that, no matter what, wherever I am, He is already there, and that is enough. 

Even here, even now...

“A devout life does bring wealth, but it’s the rich simplicity of being yourself before God. Since we entered the world penniless and will leave it penniless, if we have bread on the table and shoes on our feet, that’s enough … go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage — do good, be rich in helping others, be extravagantly generous… build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.”

—1 Timothy 6: 6-8, 17-19, The Message

[ADAPTED FROM 6-5-16]

The Most Beautiful

“One thing I have asked of the Lord, and I will seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord…”—Psalm 27:4

The sun came up this morning and, especially at the ocean, it is beautiful.

That photo of a distant land, that masterpiece of art—absolutely beautiful.

My mom was beautiful, on the outside and also how she lived her life.

Outward appearances and inner strength are our definitions of beauty.

But gazing at the beauty of the Lord?

How are you supposed to worship that kind of God?

And how can that be, anyway?

Even Isaiah says: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

But our God’s beauty is not skin-deep or even panoramically marvelous.

It is far more than being a good man (or mom) who taught and did good things.

The beauty that King David longed to gaze at, and to which all down through the ages have been invited

Is a definition from his culture that blows away all of our limited western definitions.

To the Hebrew...

God is beautiful because He is inventor, owner, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary extraordinaire, and the One and only perfect living example of all of these:

Glory, strength, greatness, power, victory, majesty, praise, honor, excellence and holiness.

God is beautiful because He embodies all that is good.
Which means real worship of a beautiful God is unlike anything we can imagine.
And it was never meant to be boring,

Never meant for going through the motions,

Of standing up and sitting down and then going home.

But an invitation to gaze at, stand in awe of, shout a loud thanksgiving to, or be holy shock-and-awe still before

The most beautiful One who stands far and above all that we can see, take a photo of or imagine.

And to know that the whole world—even yours and mine— is in His hands, still.

And what could be more beautiful than that?

"There is no lapse in His character or inconsistency in His nature. Our God is everything He says He is… for now and all eternity." - Matt Redman

Now Available

“You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and I have appointed and placed and purposefully planted you, so that you would go and bear fruit and keep on bearing, and that your fruit will remain and be lasting, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, as My representative, He may give to you.”—John 15:16, Amplified

We say:

“This is broken, I need to fix this.”

“It’s not getting done and someone’s got to do it.”

“If you want a job done right, do it yourself."

God says:

“The LORD sat as King over the deluge;

The LORD still sits as King, and forever!

The LORD will give unyielding and impenetrable strength to His people;

The LORD will bless His people with peace.”

—Psalm 29:10-11 (Amplified)

Looks like “seize the day” has already been accomplished.

So now what do I do?

In the upside-down thinking of the Kingdom of God, sometimes, the most meaningful, down-in-the-dirt-and-sweaty, and powerful thing to be done is this:

Exchange ability for availability.

“… to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way [we] will lay up treasure for [ourselves] as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that [we] may take hold of the life that is truly life."—1 Timothy 6:18-19

“My availability to God’s call…is predicated on understanding that God doesn’t need any more messiahs. He sent One. The job is finished. We are not needed. I am not needed. Ah, but I’m wanted. That’s liberating, isn’t it? To not be needed but wanted?”—Jared C. Wilson, “The Imperfect Disciple” 

[Adapted from 11-2-14]

The Rest of the Story

“How precious it is, Lord, to realize that You are thinking about me constantly! I can’t even count how many times a day Your thoughts turn to me. And when I waken in the morning, You are still thinking of me!”—Psalm 139:17-18, Living Bible

Sometimes, an old song will come out of nowhere, and you remember every word of it and where you were when you sang it, and the (usually good) memories associated with it. But sometimes, "out of nowhere" is really meant for somewhere and in fact for right now and for you, and for a good and needed Word at just the right time.

For such a week as this, one like:

"The Lord thy God (echo, echo) in the midst of thee (echo, echo), is mighty, is mighty..."

Simple comfort food from the Book of Zephaniah. Fully nourishing. Blessed assurance. Right?

And yet, hardly fluff and Christian-lite. Because what made this "out of nowhere" just-in-time song so powerful is the rest of the story, and the story for our lives:

It was written in the midst of chaos...

"Yet God remains righteous in her midst, untouched by the evil. He stays at it, day after day, meting out justice. At evening he’s still at it, strong as ever."

—Zephaniah 3:5

...It is good to know, as the Word promises, that God is with us. Better still to realize that He's even more than that. That when the world is in turmoil, when our day, our week, our life gets nuts, when some things just don’t make sense, and even during a restless night sleep filled with crazy dreams because your day was on overload, God is not just "with us" out there somewhere or observing from the grandstand of Heaven.

He is "still at it, strong as ever," actively, mightily, lovingly "with us" in the midst of it all.

"Having the reality of God's presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually."—Oswald Chambers

Where Thankfulness Wins

"In some of the best worship songs, we bring our praises to God yet at the same time also end up preaching to ourselves." - Matt Redman

Sometimes, for no reason at all, you “wake up on the wrong side of the bed.”

You can drag that sorry self throughout your day,

Or you can grab your coffee and do something outrageous, something out of the box:

Not read your daily devotional first.

Not try to dig into the Word first when your mind is off-kilter.

Definitely not scroll your social media and news headlines first.

But first, awaken the dawn.

Put on the tunes and sing.

Put the “wrong side of the bed” in its rightful place.

Whatever is True and Love and full of Hope, sing it like you don’t care if anyone is listening.

Because the best Sunday morning vitamin, or for any other day of the week

Is not always the one that is written

But the one that is first played or cranked up and sung.

Thankfulness wins every time...

“My heart is committed, O God:

    I will sing;

I will sing praises with great affection

    and pledge my whole soul to the singing.

Wake up the harp and lyre, and strum the strings;

    I will stir the sleepy dawn from slumber!

I will stand and offer You my thanks, Eternal One, in the presence of others;

    I will sing of Your greatness among the nations no matter where I am.

For Your amazing love soars overhead far into the heavens;

    Your truth rises up to the clouds

    where passing light bends.

O God, that You would be lifted up above the heavens in the hearts of Your people

    until the whole earth knows Your glory.”—Psalm 108:1-5, The Voice