Dee, a freelance writer, worked as a hospital RN and volunteered with Juvenile Justice Chaplaincy and Christian Single’s groups for three decades in her native California. She authored Lord of the Ringless and is now married. Dee also authored dogSpirations, and many of the dog devotions were inspired by her beloved Lab, Sammy, and her mini-schnauzer, Benji. Dee has written for Barbour, Guideposts, Revel and more.
Just for a moment our hearts warmed up a few degrees before the ladies began following their proud instructor and I began swimming again. But now, my focus had shifted toward this eight year old’s wishes. They were beautiful. No wonder Jesus told the disciples, “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18:10
"Beware that you don't look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father.*
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She was asking her for a toy her single mom could afford. She wanted her hamster to have a stuffed animal so he could feel good too. We will never know what the pink tarantula was about. Fourth, she prayed for the gifts that really make Christmas special for anyone — that all people would have peace in their hearts and feel happiness. When I was her age and in public school, a loaded classroom would stomp our feet and clap our hands to “If you’re happy and you know it...” I wondered if she’s seen kids at school looking sad at the holidays? Or neighbors?
Finally she prayed for world peace. Does she see her mother’s concern watching the news at 5 p.m. over the war in the Middle East? Does she know we just lost a young 20 year old soldier raised in our town and honored in our community paper? Just as her mother gushed with pride at her daughter’s Christmas list, I felt blessed to hear the beat of her heart.
Out of the abundance of her heart...
It is a stark contrast to a woman I overheard griping once at a nurse’s station about a gift her boyfriend had given her. He bought her a kitchen appliance when she wanted a trip to Jamaica, or maybe it was Venus.
Peter has been traveling with 11 disciples and Jesus. So many personalities, habits and moods. Some flexible and spontaneous, as Peter, others rigid and reserved ... or resistant.
The people we must forgive are the people closest to us. A woman once stood in church and stated how she made it through 50 years of marriage, “Breathe forgiveness.”
Sounds a lot like seventy times seven.
Jesus knew the value of forgiveness… and our human failings.
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28
"But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.
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A blessing for a curse? Forgiveness is an active decision. We all needed Jesus’ mercy for our wrongs. We rely on His love to cover our mistakes. As He sacrificed for our forgiveness, we sacrifice pride and judgment to grant mercy to others.
Matthew 5:45-48
In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends,* how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
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reveals how to behave like God’s children, bring Him honor, and release others from guilt.
“Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”(Luke 6:35-36
"Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.
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Yes, sometimes, spouses, siblings and children are like the enemies Jesus said to love. Their words pierce deeper because they are the closest to our heart. They are the ones we trust.
“My daughter is breaking my heart,” a tearful nurse once stated. Her 14-year-old had left for school with the parting words, “I hate you.”
It’s hard to love and feel loved when actions and sentiments change from day to day, or week to week. Love and hate, blessings and curses. The wheel spins inside the brain and sometimes words fly off at alarming rates. There is an enemy of our soul who loves to surprise us with a hit when we least expect it. Like an ambush, we can feel that we are battling something unseen. And we are.
Enemies emerge from horrible bosses or backstabbing peers. I once prayed daily for co-workers to shake the bird’s-nest of bitterness trying to camp in my mind. “You can’t keep a bird from landing on your head, but you can keep him from building a nest.”
Recently, a friend confided work was better. “I decided to forgive my boss, carte blanche. I just don’t let it get to me anymore.”
Forgiveness brings relief. We unload our expectations and pray to accept others, relieving us of disappointment.
Behind the scene, Satan, the unseen enemy, works to divide, raising walls and animosity. If we give way to hatred, we cannot love our enemies. We cannot walk worthy of our calling because it is dependent on others. We cannot help those we love, because we are not able to use the greatest power given to us by God—the power of love.
Love is stronger than hate. The Holy Spirit empowers us to forgive when we are attached to the Vine, Jesus Christ, who hung on a tree and died for our sins as He forgave those who nailed His hands to the cross.
Today He is alive and the power to love pours through His veins to us. Apart from Him we can do nothing. But with Him, we can choose to forgive—simply by asking Jesus—the One who knows how best to help us.
"See that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." Hebrews 12:15
Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
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In Psalms 42:5
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and
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the discouraged psalmist talks to his soul, "Put your hope in God, I shall yet praise Him my help and my God."
God could help him and give him strength to do the next thing next. He praised God for His power, stronger than the sweeping white rapids. Hundreds of years earlier, Samuel, the prophet cried to God for the Israelites' victory from enemies. God thundered with a great voice during the battle. Samuel honored God with a stone memorial and called it Ebenezer (stone of help), saying "thus far the Lord has helped us." (1 Samuel 7:12)
We need help to face work the next day after an error or oversight the day before. It shakes our confidence. Or to send another resume or prepare for another interview when the phone call inviting us aboard never materialized last time—or the time before. Will we be rejected? Or to re-enter the ring of tedious legal paperwork or court costs to battle unfairness and inequity—seems an unbeatable foe. We ask God for help.
We must decide to approach a new relationship if our last one failed—or to mend one that is torn when we are weary. We face feeling unlovable or unable to love.
But on the other hand, we can find love and be loved. We can find a job and have provision. We can value our lives and what is ours and defend ourselves with God's faithful help.
Back to choices. Is our mind spinning like a wheel? Are we afraid to get back up on the seat? Couldn't we just walk the bike, grasp the bars, feel the brakes and admire the color and paint—yet avoid the pain of falling? Yes. But we will never experience the wind on our face, or the strength of our body core creating balance. The chance to discover new places in nature and develop new friends. What speed feels like or the power of turning and control.
A world of adventure begins with the courage to take one risky step of faith over that bicycle bar. To grip the handlebars, sit down and lift our feet off the ground—determined to push the pedals forward once more.
But to trust in God we must stay in His Word to build our faith, so we grow to learn His voice and His ways.
Amy Carmichael shares a missionary story from India in her book, Candles in the Dark. She was climbing at night in a black forest using a lantern and holding it very low near her feet, so as not to slip on the rocks. She explains, "We walk spiritually by hand lantern, not by electric light. And a lantern only shows the next step - not several ahead. If the next step is clear - take it. Don't worry about the steps beyond you can't see yet."
"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." Psalm 119:105 (ESV)
God also provides strength for today, for right now, this minute. He is the God who carries us from strength to strength as Psalms 84:5-7
What joy for those whose strength comes from the LORD, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When they walk through the Valley of Weeping,* it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings. They will continue to grow stronger, and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.*
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describes pilgrims passing through a dry land. We cannot pull strength for the month, the week, or the evening. Our great, I Am, provides strength for the present as we step out and dance in the moment with Him leading us. We are safe, we are clear, and we are living with our full potential as much as we can wherever we are on our journey in the tunnel. The exit will come.
The moment we exited the tunnel at Yosemite, suddenly, all was colorful and beautiful and focused. In a sudden burst of light, we gazed at a glorious blue sky and majestic lodgepoles edging a paved road winding up before us to our final destination. The tunnel was behind us.
"You, LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light" Psalm 18:28 (NIV)
CBN.com "How come you ripped your goggles off after that race Michael?" the interviewer asked after Michael Phelps won another gold medal. "Was something going on there?"
"My goggles filled with water as soon as I dove in the water," the superstar stated matter-of-fact.
"So you swam the entire race unable to see?" the commentator was incredulous.
His silence spoke volumes. There was no opportunity to adjust them once the race started. He finished with gold and broke another world record. Surprising?
Later we learned his coach purposely stepped on his goggles at a meet two years ago and broke them. It may have seemed like a senseless gesture then, but it sure makes sense now.
"That's what a good coach does," the gym trainer told me this morning while he monitored his trainee's water exercises:
“About fifteen years ago at Cherry Island when Tiger Woods was in the youth circuit, I was on the green when he and his dad showed up to practice. Tiger dumped a bunch of balls out of the bag and spread them around the ground preparing for practice.”
“’Oh, no you don't!’ His dad walked from one ball to the other and planted his foot on top of each one pressing it firmly into the earth. ‘There's no easy lie around here,’ he said shaking his head from side-to-side.”
‘What does that mean?" I asked the trainer.
"It means Tiger was going to have to get his club underneath the ball because it was wedged into the dirt. He didn't get easy hits."
Each ball was a mini-trial. His dad wasn't making practice fun. He was making it hard. And look what he produced?
What is God, our coach, producing in you and me? Do we question his love when the hardships come? How does a good father train up his child?
In 2 Timothy Paul writes a letter to his protégé Timothy, from prison - a Roman dungeon. He is preparing to pass him the torch, the stewardship of the gospel:
"You then my son be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." (2 Timothy 2:1
Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus.
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) The strength he described was from God. Timothy would be empowered by grace, a divine gift (grace, charis) we all possess in Christ. He told Timothy to entrust the gospel to reliable or faithful men who will also be qualified to teach others. Timothy did his job.
We have received the torch. It has passed through many hands down through the ages.
Today, in 2008, we are entrusted with the gospel. Are we running the race? How are we handling the hardship? Are we sharing our faith shamelessly as Paul admonished Timothy in some of his last words before he was beheaded?
"Keep reminding them of these things" (2 Timothy 2:1
Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus.
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4) he told Timothy.
So we are reminded to be dedicated as soldiers, diligent as farmers, disciplined as athletes. Training isn't easy. The Master himself had a grueling race on earth. Jesus never said it would be easy, but he did say "all things are possible." And today he coaches us from His vantage point, knowing how to instruct us best and encourage us on our individual course, from his seat at the right hand of the Father.
"Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs - he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly anyone who competes as an athlete, he does not receive the victor's crown unless he competes according to the rules." 2 Timothy 2:3-5
Dee is an RN, freelance writer and coach. A native of Northern California, she enjoys the great outdoors with her happy dogs, a yellow lab and miniature schnauzer. She has volunteered with the Juvenile Justice Chaplaincy many years. Her first Devotion & Bible study guide for women, "Lord of the Ringless," will be out this summer. Visit Dee at www.LordoftheRingless.com
How does it happen? The power of God, described in Aramaic as dunamos is from the word dynamite. The hidden power of prayer waits with the potential of dynamite. As our hearts link to God, He ignites prayer. We whisper that prayer and it shoots up to heaven. When God receives it, He opens it, adding the power and the glory!
We see the answers come tumbling down from Heavenly places.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…” James 1:17
Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.* He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.*
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This year as you follow those tiny ribbons heavenward, attach a small prayer in your heart to one or two. As the color bursts forth, imagine God at work with your small act of faith. Be ready to wait and trust that it has reached its destination. God has heard your prayers and He is working on an answer.
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…" Ephesians 3:20
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.
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Dear Lord, keep me praying, knowing it doesn’t matter how I feel — how great or small my prayers may sound. Each is answered and each is power-packed as it reaches you, Lord, in those heavenly places.
CBN.com I’m eager to see The Dark Knight, the Batman Blockbuster. Especially now, since my nephew insisted I first watch Batman Begins last week. It was a moral, thought-provoking movie with great characters and story development. I loved it.
One of my favorite parts depicted how Bruce Wayne was mercilessly trained for his larger-than-life role to fight evil. His brutal teacher pressed him in one bam, wham moment—“you must face your fears,” because whatever you are afraid of will control you. As we discovered, Bruce Wayne was afraid of bats—so he became Batman.
It reminded me of Jesus and how he spoke to the Disciples about fear as he walked with them daily and instructed them. He knew His time was short to train them before He in His divinity and humanity faced his greatest fear. Death and separation from God, the Father.
We all have fears. That is why God addresses fear in his top ten topics throughout the Bible. He knows what we are made of and where our weaknesses lie.
That is why David sought him for help beginning in his youth.
“I sought the Lord and he answered me; He delivered me from all my fears.” (Psalms 34:4
I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.
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David was living in the desert at the time. Not a fun place. Fears could range from dying of thirst to scorpion bites. He faced predators roaming in packs including men—sent by Saul to slay him.
Jesus addresses the fear of being killed at the hands of ungodly men in Luke 12:5
But I'll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell.* Yes, he's the one to fear.
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; “but I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.”
Wow. The first time I read this as a new believer it shocked me. Scripture puts mans ability to harm us in perspective.
Women are always looking over their shoulders for any predator. We learn it as young girls: walking down streets, in parking lots at shopping centers, apartments or work, elevators, bike trails, scenic, isolated or not - you name it, every woman knows it. And men do too.
My nephews have been to parties where the butcher knives come out of the drawers and the gunshots sound in apartments at night. Recently my teenage neighbor was attacked by two young males as they walked by him in our suburbs.
Jesus faced the ultimate fear - death by brutality and separation from The Father forever. Death of body, soul and spirit. Jesus faced death with all the ridicule, torture and disgrace necessary…to carry our sins to the cross and prevent our ultimate extinction. He died so we could live.
He overcame death and became our Light Knight, rescuing us from the cavern of the corruptible. He made us incorruptible and immortal, by overcoming the Demon of Darkness in the Battle for our Redemption.
And he won. He rose. He overcame. And through Him we have overcome death. Because the same power that raised Him from the dead, He has imparted to us. He is our Master Teacher. And He has already gone before us and parted the skies to the heavens.
“Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is Your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55
O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?*"
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Dee is an RN, freelance writer and coach. A native of Northern California, she enjoys the great outdoors with her happy dogs, a yellow lab and miniature schnauzer. She has volunteered with the Juvenile Justice Chaplaincy many years. Her first Devotion & Bible study guide for women, "Lord of the Ringless," will be out this summer. Visit Dee at www.LordoftheRingless.com
