He Who Began a Good Work

 

...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.     Philippians 1:6

It starts with a small thing, really. A little insult. An angry look. A smirk. 

The first offense. 

You smile, you look it over, and you forgive. 

Years later, you are so much older, and you have had to repeat this process a thousand times. So very many times. You have forgiven. Over and over again. Sometimes, you have had to talk to the person who has hurt you. Sometimes, they have repented. Sometimes, they haven't. It doesn't matter anymore to you, though, because an apology means very little. Corrected behavior does. 

Right at that time, the person you thought would never hurt you does. And it is excruciating. What do you do? 

You smile, you look it over, and you forgive. 

70 times 7, right? 

Years pass again. You are older and starting to wonder when you'll see your first gray hair. You have a new set of friends now, and things are different with them. Or so you think. 

Then, it happens again. You are betrayed. You are wounded. 

You retreat. You pray. You cry. You ask God what to do. 

You smile, you forgive, but you don't look it over. 

Years pass again. You are afraid of friendships. You wonder if people even know the meaning of them anymore. They have forgotten the verse, "A friend loves (is loyal) at all times." Proverbs 17:17 You wonder if we are living in the last days and everyone's "love has grown cold." Matthew 24:12

You aren't sure, but you aren't willing to look over things anymore. If someone proves themselves not to be your friend, you believe them. Why pretend? 

Now, you are even older. You are starting to wonder if there really is any gray or maybe you see a gray hair or two. You no longer believe in friendship (at least, the way the Bible says it should be), but you still are trying to show people the love of Jesus.

Again, a little insult, an angry look, or a smirk. It's that age old cycle again. This time, you don't even really feel an offense. You wonder why it keeps happening again and again, but you don't hate the person. You wonder what it is about you that would make them be so hateful, but you try to show them the love of Jesus anyway. 

You smile, you forgive, and you move on. You are past looking things over. You've learned about boundaries and continuing to be yourself despite the meanness of others. You have learned that you didn't want the friendship of the hardhearted bully anyway. Who would want to be friends with them? 

You are fine with yourself. You like yourself. 

And now, it doesn't matter who likes you or not. Then, you realize, "He who began a good work in you" has completed it. That is, He is completing it. You are being sanctified through this process, and even though it didn't feel good, you have come out on the other side an even better person. 

Despite the facade of fakes you have endured your whole life, you have not only won the battle, but you have won the war. 

In His timing...He will do it.

 

In His Timing…He will do it.

Our time is usually not God’s time. I wrote a blog a few years ago entitled “He Will Do It!!!” Exclamation marks and all, I truly and wholeheartedly believed God for something, felt like He told me it was His will, and prayed like nothing else for it to happen. I even felt like He gave me this exact verse for it and told me to write the blog as an exercise of faith. 

It didn’t happen.

Now, it has happened. I feel a bit in a whirl since God fulfilled…in His timing…what I thought He should have fulfilled years ago. I didn’t experience a lack of faith or anything like that. I just figured I hadn’t heard Him right or added something to what He told me that wasn’t there.

We do that, ya know.

But now that I am seeing fulfilment of His promise and this verse, it makes me think of other things I’ve prayed for and been given verses for…things that didn’t materialize in that time. I begin to think of how God is not constrained by our time and perhaps His yes…is really "Yes." Maybe we just haven’t seen it yet.

I think of other verses:

“I will hold fast to the confession of my hope without wavering for He who promised is faithful.”

“Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

“Seek Him and His righteousness and all these things will be given unto you.”

“I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you—to give you a hope and a future.”

“But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds…because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares.”

“For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come. It will not tarry.”

Some of these verses revealed their manifestation in a short amount of time. Others took longer. Others, I am still waiting on.

But perhaps what I felt in that moment God gave me that verse—His approval of my request and the forthcoming answer—was a "Yes" for a certain time not yet revealed.

Lately, I have been seeing the verse again, “The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.” I’ve been seeing it at coffee shops, in a co-worker’s office, on Facebook, and in my church's Sunday School room. Literally everywhere.

If that’s not confirmation of what God told me long ago, I don’t know what is. I think He’s let me see this verse again to let me know one thing: He heard me. It took years for His answer to come, but He was willing then to say yes to that thing.

So, if you have been praying and praying…and feeling like you have God’s approval on it…but not seeing the manifestation yet…don’t lose faith.

See this as your encouragement. Wait upon the Lord. To wait upon the Lord is a good thing. That's another Bible verse. 

And perhaps, in His timing, you will see the fulfillment of that precious promise you received to your prayer. Time means nothing to Him, although to us, the wait can sometimes seem cruel. He has so much for you in the waiting, though. Look for those things. Ask Him. See the others around you and all the opportunities to reach out to others and show love to them.

Ask for what He’s trying to reveal to you, through you, and in you. Let Him use those years to change you—to mold you a little more into His Son.

That’s the real purpose after all—the real promise. To one day look in the face of Jesus and reflect His image perfectly. Oh, what a joy—the day of that answered prayer.

I Will Live

There are many things the year of 2020 ushered in and mostly unpleasant for people. For my family, the end of 2020 was stressful with my mom’s minor heart attack on Christmas Eve. To top that, a little more than two months later, she had two seizures that were caused by a benign meningioma in the membrane. Talk about a terrible start to 2021.

And yet...it hasn’t been so terrible. God’s grace has been wonderful, and He has used this to renew us and make us more like His precious Son. One thing I think He’s taught me more than anything is that more than healing, more than health, and more than even the fulfillment of His promises in our lives, is that we simply need Him.

Lately, I’ve just been praying for God to come in. Just himself. I’ve asked Him to come in to our home, our bodies, and every aspect of our lives. I’ve even asked Him to come into my tooth that’s been aching a month or so (I went to the dentist, but she can’t find anything wrong). 

I tell you what, when you pray for God to come in, He does. He draws near to those who draw near to Him. 

Today, I was reading in Lisa Bevere’s book, Girls With Swords. Such a good book for combating spiritual warfare which is what I feel my family has been facing. Toward the end, there is this story about how she was praying for her father’s salvation. It was really about how only God saves and not we ourselves, but as I was reading, God led my eyes to the words: “If you were to die tonight, where would you go?”

I said, “Well Lord, I believe I’d go to Heaven. You substituted yourself in my place for my sins to take death from me and to give me your righteousness so I can stand before you holy.” 

I then felt Him say, “She doesn’t know that.”

Wow. I felt my heart pounding. Lisa’s chapter had really been about rejection and how God shaped David’s character though all the rejection at Saul and Nabal’s hand. I had been thinking about a girl who decidedly rejected me a few years ago and led others to do the same. I was very hurt, and just chose to be silent, not saying mean things about her and resolving not to say anything about the situation to people who knew her, worked with her, or went to church with her. I did speak about it to my parents and two friends who did not know her to try and get some advice and help from them in the situation. 

I did everything I possibly knew to do to restore the relationship, but it was like hitting a brick wall.

That said, it has been very hard for me to understand this because I knew she was a Christian and had the respect of a lot of people. She was from a different religious background, though, and did not believe in substitutionary grace.

Wow. When God spoke this to my heart today, I knew exactly what He was doing. He was telling me that she lives every day in fear of whether she is going to hell. No wonder she was all riled up and full of anger. 

To not know His grace...

To not have His absolute assurance...

To not know “I shall not die, but live...”

It gave me a compassion for her and an understanding of the situation I didn’t have before. It may never be redeemed, but I can put it at His feet. And I can pray for her to find the same peace and grace I have. In the end, it’s all about Him. 

Once Jesus comes in, no one can leave the same. So I pray for Jesus to come into her life and mine. I pray for His redemption, especially in that final day. I pray we both stand before Him someday in the light of His presence and in full assurance of His grace. 

That’s what I pray for her, and what I pray for me. Cause in the end, we are both sinners in need of His grace. We are the same before Him, and thank the Lord, His grace is enough. 

He is enough. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And we can trust Him to give us the way forward. We can trust Him to redeem all situations and one day heal all wounds. 2020 and 2021 will be years that may not make sense completely, but when He comes in, oh, how glorious even the worst situations and years can be. 

I don’t know if you can see the pale, barely visible rainbow in the sky in this photo I attached above. I took it on my way home the other day from one of my mom’s doctor appointments. The rainbow, to me, symbolizes the promises to come. God, I truly believe, has a hope and a future for my mother and for me. The promise isn’t fully visible, but I can just see it...there in the future, waiting for us to fully realize in His perfect day and in His perfect timing. So, I can rest and know that He is advocating for me and for my mother, both for this life and the next. Ultimately, to know we will “live and not die,” can there be any greater joy? 

Focus on your salvation this day, and on His wonderful, substitutionary grace. I promise it will lift your hearts, and give 2020 and 2021 a different color. Maybe, for you, it will even look like a pale rainbow, barely hidden, giving promise of the years to come. 

Perfected in Discipline

Ooh, I really don't want to talk about perfection. And being disciplined. I have a really hard time with the verse, "Be perfect as your Father is perfect." After all, if our righteousness is as filthy rags, how is it possible to even reach perfection?

It's not.

But that doesn't mean that we don't try.

Every moment, every hour, every time we speak or think, we should be representatives of Christ. We are "mini-Christs" so to speak. And if that is true, I ask you, are you making a very good likeness?

I know that I don't always. But I do try.

But maybe it is time to try harder. After all, I feel like we live in a world where we are constantly being told to be like the world. I think it has infected the Christian church, maybe like never before. I mean, look at us. Look at the divorces, and the drugs, and the pornography addictions. And as Americans, many of us have such luxury and freedom that these "worldly habits" become something that don't always affect us that much in real life. The alter is always open and often the same people make the same trips down.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Repentance is always wonderful and it is always good to get right with God. But why doesn't it stick? Why don't we stick to our resolve?

Because we are human. And yeah, that's all fine and good. It is true and God's mercies are new every morning. Thank goodness for us. Because if I was God, I would have lost patience by now, right?

Anyway, all this to say, I don't make New Years resolutions. But I am going to try to read my Bible through in a year this year. And I am going to try to pray without ceasing. And I am going to try to love even my enemies.

Because, if we believe what we say we do, that Christ has come down to earth to redeem the world and that it is He alone that saves, then we better get to doing our job, people. God says that His grace is sufficient. And that He always gives us a way out of temptation.

So let's depend on that grace a little more. And let's look for the ways out with a little more diligence.

And maybe then this world will change. And maybe people will find Jesus. And the love and honor and beauty that we are all missing in this world (and even in ourselves) will return to us.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. And He will lift you up. Higher and Higher. And He will lift you up.