Category: Journal

My Utmost for His Highest – March 19

…Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason—a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.

…Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith—a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. “Abraham believed God. . .” (Romans 4:3).

An appropriate reminder in our current circumstance…where it seems God is moving us to prepare for change and yet obstacles seem to test us and circumstances tempt us to believe that we will be stuck here indefinitely under burdens too heavy to carry. Kendra is so depleted that she got sick when we went down to the funeral and has had the worst flu of her life…then we find out the house sale is not going through. Karina and I have colds and raw throats, the baby still has congestion at night, Kendra has the report from the dentist of an $11,000 bill to fix her teeth. The Lord seems to be reminding me of the spiritual battle around us. I have the thought (slow in coming) that the Lord is calling us towards the dreams he’s given us – to glorify him with our creative gifts – and that the enemy of our souls feels an urgency to thwart these plans and bring us to discouragement. I feel ironically encouraged by this thought…that the future must be bright for the enemy to push so hard. In the moment i long for the cloud to lift but i want to be faithful to the hope God has planted in us and live a life of consistent faith.

Fill us Lord with you faithfulness, hope and courage for the road you have chosen for us.

written for Father’s day, June 2007

Papa went to foreign lands
to walk a mile
in foreign sands
he tried to teach men
right from wrong
but found his cry
for God in song
He opened his heart
to dream a great dream
and his dream did
swallow him whole
so it seemed

Some men sit in places
where shadows grow long
and wonder inside
about what could have been
but papa moves heaven
as he carries his song
and looks on in wonder
at all he has seen

Never did he ask
what the cost might be
or consider more than once
what loss he might see
for his life was indeed
not his own

I am the son of a dreamer
and a product of change
with a new road to follow
as i look for my name
I’ve tried out these limbs
on the road he has travelled
and have found our stride
not the same

I have watched from afar
as he shoulders his load
and looks for a right arm to hold
and i grieve a great sorrow
that i’m not within reach
and my strength is not
his to borrow

Some days I feel
I have lost a great friend
yet somehow i am proud of this pain
and yet it still is so hard
and yet is still is my joy
how do i laugh and cry
like I did as a boy?

I hope it is strength to his frame
as he walks sunset trails
to know that his son
has been blessed by his hand
and will ever be proud
to carry his name

a good and appropriate word from Oswald Chambers (one of my favorite writers)

March 6 entry:

When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.

Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17 .

It’s sunday night and i was feeling the burdens of this season yet again without the support and refreshment of fellowship with other believers to strengthen my heart. The sense of loss becomes palpable at times…it’s as though i had lost one of the main visible reflections of Christ and can’t seem to recapture the image. All this is true and yet at the time my heart swells with gratitude for all he is doing and has been showing me in the desert. It truly is in the desert where he speaks and feeds the soul.

So…i decided to play some guitar and worship when all was dark and the day was through. A song from Leeland “Beautiful Lord” has been speaking my heart the last few days. Music seems to access all the passion centers of my being and bypass the centers of reason filled with countless excercises laboring over problems that i can’t solve. I found myself pouring out my heart, playing the same 3 chords and just singing my heart to my beautiful saviour. my mind filled with images of the many ways he has sheltered, protected, and cradled me since my childhood in the same way that i hold and treasure my beautiful little baby girls…yet with much greater faithfulness, tenderness, patience, and passion. i became overwhelmed with gratitude and was filled with a sense of peace about our future…an assurance that He is leading us somewhere good…somewhere that will be a testimony of his love and truth that speaks through both the blessing and hardship, joy and pain of our journey. The words just seem to flow and come together naturally from a place of truth and honesty…and i haven’t felt my hunger for God so stirred up in quite a while. I guess the tears streaming down my face were a sign to me of how i’ve needed this kind of access to my heart and emotions…a way to tell God what i long to say and know that He hears and deeply cares. Thank you Jesus for the great lengths you have gone through to convince your children that you care. There truly is no one like you.