When God Is Silent… He’s Up to Something
Periods of “silence” are common in the history of God’s relations with man. Yet we always find out later that God was up to something better all along.
Category battling cancer
Are We There Yet?
– Joe Fornear Exhaustion… terrible inconvenience… unsanitary conditions… a nightmare scenario. Maybe God is trying to tell us something about life by the circumstances in which our King Jesus entered into our world. Our journeys can be difficult and…
Three Keys to Thankfulness (Part 2)
But a huge stumbling block to this determination (to be thankful) is the stubborn belief that thankfulness is a result of trouble-free existence. "I'd like to be thankful, but everything keeps breaking down around this house." "I'd like to be thankful, but God hasn't fulfilled my greatest need yet."
Three Keys to Thankfulness (Key #1)
Certainly the Lord greatly encourages thankfulness, as there are dozens of invitations in the Scripture. Since His love for us is incomparable, thankfulness must be very good for us! At the start of His love letter to the Colossians, the Lord even leads Paul to pray for them to be thankful (1:11-12).
Wisdom from a Weather Vane
I can still recall the powerful gusts of pain and suffering. I was caught in a hurricane and desperately trying to hold on... to anything. Yet in the midst of my lamentations, God's love was so consistent and available. His love broke through my self-reliance and my do-it-yourself approach to fighting cancer.
Three Responses to Adversity
Enlisting trials won’t make them easy, but it will cut them down to manageable size.
Is It True – No Pain-No Gain?
As a Stage IV melanoma survivor, the purifying fires of pain have swept through my own heart. Struggles have the potential to revise values and refocus priorities, setting us free from the empty desires and tyrannous demands of life.
How to Master Your Human Race
So considering the ways of The Great Charter of Courses, I wonder if we spend too much time trying to change our journey and not enough time mastering its challenges. Don’t get me wrong, I think we should diligently and boldly seek course change – be it physical healing or deliverance from a rough situation. Even Jesus sought a Plan B route before His crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane! Yet there is a stumbling block in forgetting to move forward while we wait for circumstantial change.
Props to Coping with Crisis
Paul was no stranger to hardship. He mastered some miserable circumstances – jailings, whippings, beating and stonings. He knew what it took to not just survive, but to thrive. So like Paul, let’s allow dependence on God’s power to propel us forward into great endurance and patience, even joy.
Are We There Yet?
Like little children in the back seat of our Heavenly Father’s car, we call out, “Are we there yet?” Sometimes endurance is our only choice.