Infirmity

P 3225 Please don’t settle for postponing your only life.

/ DVH

The bible says that hope deferred, (postponed) can make our hearts sick!  Being ill or having a permanent infirmity can lock us into going round and round, searching for answers. We can easily forget to live the life we have. Sadly we are often bombarded by things on TV about what is wrong with us health wise – it seems we are obsessed with trying to live forever, here and now. Let me tell you that if this lot down here is the best we’ve got to live for, then we are all sunk! We definitely need higher aims!!

Some precious people in this world live their whole lives in abject poverty. What is appalling about that, is the fact that many of those who have more than enough, won’t share. Our world currently produces enough food to feed everyone in it. Back to the point: every single day the TV is full of diseases that might, or probably WILL kill you, and how we can and should avoid them. Cheery stuff! Turn off the TV I say, and put on something calming and relaxing. Something that lifts your heart. Counting symptoms doesn’t do that, it creates fear.

There are times when I see smiley-faced young and fit people doing repetitive and ridiculous exercises, or they are selling some gizmo or other and they happily tell me that ‘I can look like them if I just buy one of these.’ I laugh my head off. These people think they are telling me how to get and keep health … like somehow we have control over it! What a joke!! My genes have nothing whatsoever to do with me. The Lord knows what I need and He will always give it to me – in the meantime I want to concentrate on finding and keeping GRACE! 

Let’s do whatever we can to help ourselves, and then move our thoughts on to better things – like loving Him and loving others. Father God is not going to ask us if we used our faith to get good health. He will ask us if we took the time to help others to get to know Him. Meanwhile who wants to be the best looking old person with a great body …in a casket? Not me! Personally, I want people to remember me as that mad old lady who wouldn’t stop talking about Jesus! Let’s just aim at being His witnesses, and tell others He’s alive and He lives in us – so when we keep consistently loving others, eventually they will stumble across His reality too! 

Meanwhile good luck with keeping well enough to get out of this world alive, only one guy ever did that. All I can say is – Enoch knew how to choose a brilliant walking Companion. It never fails to astonish me that the easiest road to living forever seems to be the one people avoid the most! They’d rather do thousands of push ups! I’m not sure that being supremely fit is the best aim we can have, I don’t remember Jesus running in any other marathon but the one He called LIFE.  Moo-ving on …

Because of God’s incredible generosity, you and I have eternity to look forward too … neither of us will be sick or infirm there!  Healing is always God’s gracious generosity generated toward the sick person. It doesn’t matter whether the doctors say they can help you or not, just pray over it and give your health to Him and keep walking. 

Go after having enough Grace to manage whatever is going on. Remember we are all growing the fruit of patient forbearance in our lives. However, even when you are sick, don’t stop believing He can heal you. I urge you to keep your expectation in His goodness toward you alive by reflecting on how good He is.

Jesus didn’t only heal people – He also delivered them, taught them, fed them, physically and spiritually. Making one thing more important than another often leads to heartache for many. Especially those who struggle to believe He is good in the face of pain and suffering. Let’s just go after Him and see where that leads us. 

Even battered and bruised hope can make the best of whatever situation it is placed in, as we point that hope toward the One Who holds the future and loves us all more than life itself. Our faith rests in Him! I lean on Him and ask for mercy – a lot! I also hope today will be a better day than yesterday, and I will look more like Him today than I did last week.

Our hope needs to be well-placed and the best place for it is in Him. In His character, and love for us. When our hope is in Him, and not in our circumstances, we will not be swayed from our God-given course. It is the same one that was laid out in front of Jesus. “For your heart will always pursue what you esteem as your treasure.” Matthew 6:21 TPT. “He is no fool who gives away what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”(J. Elliot) 

Don’t settle for postponing living your life when bad health grabs you, because hope deferred can make our hearts even sicker. But focusing on Jesus first, becomes a tree of life. Bye 👋

P 2893 People need to see HIM in us.

/ DVH

Luke 13:10-17 “On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.When Jesus saw her, He called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then He put His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When He said this, all His opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things He was doing.”

Why were these people so delighted? Here’s my theory … instead of rules and regulations, theories and hypotheses about this or that … God’s Love for ordinary people, those who daily lived in pain and suffering, was being acted out in front of their eyes! Suddenly His Love was no longer a theory — it was on display! Something they could see and experience for themselves. People saw His love in action, through everything Christ did. Sometimes I feel that we have failed the Lord, by talking, talking, talking about this idea or that one, but we haven’t actually moved from theory into practice.

Romans 5:8:“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Jesus is God’s love demonstrated. Let’s just think about that. He was kind to sinners and saints alike and He healed and delivered people who were trapped in terrible situations. He taught everyone around Him what God is like by the way He treated them. You and I meet people who need these demonstrations of His love every single day. They need His touch, whether it is an encouraging word, or a prayer for healing, or even food or shelter.

Our God chose to come here as a vulnerable infant, He lived among us, and … “Jesus Christ set a perfect example of kindness and love. Throughout His earthly ministry, He showed His love for others by blessing and serving the poor, the sick, and the distressed.” (Thank you Google!) Here’s my question for today – how do WE as in … you and I …choose to demonstrate our love for God to others? If we are not distracted, or weighted down by the cares of this life, and we are living vastly unaware of our personal contribution – we can think that simply avoiding sin meets His requirements. Sadly that kind of stuff will turn anyone into a legalist in a heart beat. Instead of peace flowing like a river … judgment will drown anyone who comes near it!

Here’s a revelation — trying to avoid sin is not the answer. Jesus already dealt with sin at Calvary and He expects us to use the power He bequeathed to us to deal with our own sin in our own lives using our OWN faith! There’s no point in sweeping junk under the carpet … that lump in the middle of the carpet is a dead-giveaway. Other people are bound to stumble over it. Luke 8:17: “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” Sooner or later who we really are jumps out under pressure. What we do after that happens, hits everyone around us with a learning curve. Then we can’t continue to pretend that we are AOK, because it eventually becomes obvious we are not.

The people who live around us need God’s love demonstrated toward them – that’s why He has given all of us Grace gifts, now we can deal with this world without hating it, or avoiding it. These Grace gifts change other people’s lives – and awaken faith in His goodness in us. It is consistency that matters – so day by day – we need to choose to  live our lives for His sake. This is how we usher in His kingdom – we follow Him, and we see people through His eyes. Tolerated and/or hidden sin can make us deaf and blind to other people’s needs. However, His love causes our faces to shine the way Jesus’ face shone with the love of the Father. 

Father God knows how to go around other people’s fierce, disinterested faces and attitudes, and bless them with His Love – despite their postures of indifference. We just follow the Holy Spirit and obey His prompts.The glorious thing about God’s loving, fruitful kingdom is that even a little tiny bit of it released into someone else’s life grows. That’s because His kingdom is not of this world – or subject to the junk we tolerate.

Always remember, people need to see Him in us. Every single day we need to use our faith to move beyond this world’s thinking, and start thinking and acting like HE does. My last thought is this, make friends with the Holy Spirit, He knows how to reach people. Bless you. 👋

P 2541 God’s sovereignty.

/ DVH

1 Samuel 23:14,16-17… David relied upon God…. .“Day after day Saul searched for him, but God did not give David into his hands.” Saul’s Son Jonathan searched for him and went out to the desert to encourage David. And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.”

1 Samuel 23:21-23. “Saul replied, “The Lord bless you for your concern for me. Go and get more information. Find out where David usually goes and who has seen him there. They tell me he is very crafty. Find out about all the hiding places he uses and come back to me with definite information. Then I will go with you; …” And God helped David to escape from King Saul.”

Here’s my first thought: what if SAUL was praying that God would help him catch David??  The Old Testament is filled  with conflicting stories about ordinary people who relied upon God and sometimes it was a happy ending and sometimes it wasn’t. Think about Able, he did nothing! Or Tamar. These people were victims of someone else’s sin and God allowed those stories to play out. If we look at those first verses from Samuel 23 we can see that Saul searched for David …and, he couldn’t find him! But Jonathan searched for David and found him immediately! 

Now, there’s a lesson right there. Being found or “heard” by other people can depend on whether or not we intend to do them harm. Maybe God is hiding your enemy from you! Maybe He doesn’t take sides!! Saul wanted to kill David, but Jonathan wanted to encourage him and help him live to be King. God sees our hearts, and He has no qualms about protecting us from each other, when it is necessary. To me these verses are about God’s ability to protect us from trouble. He promised to be with us, and He is. Look, you may not like what I say next – but I truly believe in God’s sovereignty! 

I believe the Lord can speak to us through other people. If somebody keeps on pricking our conscience for one thing or another and they don’t stop – we’d better listen – whether we like that person or not!  It is way too easy to dismiss other people as having an agenda of their own, outside of God’s will for you, simply by telling yourself, ‘that’s just what they think!’ However, if we hear something over and over again, even if we don’t like it… and even if we don’t know how to fix whatever it is – we had better pay attention. If that other person can see something in me that I can’t see, then I need to listen and, at the very least, pray about it. That’s called humility.

The story of Balaam’s ass comes to mind. That dear little talking donkey was God’s gift to Balaam! (Numbers 22-24.) And the beast clearly illustrates that our God knows what comes next.  He is the God Who can take Gideon into his enemy’s camp to listen to their conversations, and allow him to escape undiscovered and unharmed. He’s the God who knew that Jezebel was going to threaten to kill Elijah, and that Elijah would run away in fear … even though 10 minutes before Elijah called down fire from heaven! Almighty God used the time afterward to teach Elijah about His sovereignty.

He’s the God Who let satan test poor old Job within an inch of his life and He used that to reveal Himself to Job in a deeper way. God is good. But …HIS DEFINITION OF GOODNESS AND OURS ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS. Listen to this: “Yet it PLEASED the LORD to bruise Him;He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed…” Isaiah 53:10. Jesus had done nothing to deserve the treatment He got, but God was pleased about it because what happened to Him was for our benefit.

Father God’s definition of good is wa-ay different than ours. Read the book!  Instead of trying to wrangle His actions into our definition of good, we need to wrangle with the idea that God’s Ways are not our ways! When HE says good … He means ultimate good … as He defines it. This can be a place where Christians fall into a hole, often. Just because it doesn’t look good, that does not mean it is not good! It simply means our little peanut brains are limited. That is the time to ask for wisdom, or patience, or even faith that won’t quit.

Paul asked God three times to take …whatever his infirmity was away … and it didn’t happen. Why not? I dunno! This man was brilliant. Spiritually he was so empowered by God that he wrote 13 or 14 books in the New Testament. Yet he spent five years of his ministry in JAIL. But, if he hadn’t done that we may not have had all those 13 or 14 books to read today! Peter only wrote two Epistles in his lifetime. 

The sovereignty of God is an essential part of our belief system. It says: “He’s God, I’m not, I don’t get it but I will trust Him anyway.” There are many times we can allow our disappointment in God’s revealed plans to weaken our faith – instead of letting those scenarios strengthen our faith in His ultimate goodness. It’s a choice. Our God is sovereign, He will do what He will do. He is open to negotiation. BUT! Almighty God does not answer to us, we answer to Him. 👋