Press On

Three sticks tossed into the stream, the bridge beneath our feet.

Three sticks into that happy, gurgling Connecticut stream, she tossed them, and we watched to see how they would reappear on the other side, tumbling, rolling in the blissful cold water, the stones heavy on the sandy bottom.

And we watched as only two emerged, silently, steadfastly moving on, and then watched again as another got stuck on the side of the stream, the clutter of debris hindering its free movement. 

The last stick gleefully spun on, ever racing, ever tumbling merrily down the stream, to who-knows-where, its pathway delightfully free. 

And my Mom points out the lesson -- one stick never made it beyond the bridge, another got stuck, hindered by the cares and the debris of the stream-life around it, and one stick flowed on with the current of the clear, crisp water, free and unencumbered. 

It's easy to get stuck; it's easy to be worn down by the cares of this life. It's easy to never make it down the stream. 

How do we avoid getting stuck?

By pressing on. 

In the strength that God alone gives, by the power and freedom of the Holy Spirit, we press on. 

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory. 

Therefore . . . we do not lose heart. 

And though the outward man is wasting away, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. (II Corinthians 4:17-18)

Press on.

It's what my sister always reminds me of, tells me to do. 

She looks at me and she says, "Press on." 

Says it with her gentle eyes of steel-conviction. 

When I'm discouraged, worn down by the cares of this life. 

Her words always lift me up again, to where He is -- the words of the apostle Paul that she is echoing   . . . 

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:12-14).

And the struggles don't disappear, but the load lightens, because I trust Him to bear the burden with me. 

I don't need to carry it alone. 

He gives me the strength. 

The strength not to wallow in my worries, in my fears, in my lack of money or resources or time or whatever it is I am choosing to wallow in. 

He gives me strength -- when I take hold of Him and press on. 

He is my Strength . . . when my flesh and my heart fail

He is the strength of my heart . . . .

And my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26). 


Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/wastatednr/9196029606/">Washington State Department of Natural Resources</a> / <a href="http://foter.com">Foter</a> / <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)</a>

My Father's Voice

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

-C.S. Lewis

Source

Sometimes I still think that I can hear his voice . . . 

Down in the kitchen--gruff and deep,the low tones of a winter's night wrapped in sandpaper.

And I can imagine his heavy-work-worn hands, the scar on his thumb where it was almost lost in a carpentry accident. 

And I can hear him calling me "Fuzz;" his nickname for me because of my frizzy hair and remember the way that he made his coffee midnight-strong in the morning. 

I used to wake up around the same time that he did--5 am--he because he didn't want to "waste the day," and me to be able to pray before I went to school. 

We didn't want to waste the day . . . 

But his Day was wasted and he turned away from the Voice of the Father, the voice that once called him and beckoned the proud heart to Himself. 

The proud heart that broke --

Broke his family and his God and hardened into a molten rock, so thick and deep and stony, and it wouldn't be broken, only used to crush. 

The hearts of the ones who loved him most--

The hearts of the ones who called him husband and daddy--

The hearts of the three little girls who held his hands and sat on his lap, and who craved his love and affection and attention.

The heart of the woman who lived and built her life around his--who always wanted the best for him and forgave the lies over and over and over.  

They almost broke. 

But the Lord uses stones that try to crush to purify and to magnify His grace and mercy through heartache and loss.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (II Corinthians 4:8-10)

The Father of mercy--who causes grief, but will yet show compassion . . . 

And I learned through those days, those years dim with sorrow and mourning and wishing, praying that things could be different, that my Heavenly Father is enough--

That He fills things that are empty with joy--

That He makes rivers from deserts

The wilderness into a road--

And the Valley of Achor into a door of hope. 

Sometimes I still hear his voice, 

But it has grown fainter--

And my Heavenly Father's, stronger--richer--fuller--bright and strong and full of hope and redemption--has grown more beautiful and real to me.  

I can hear my Father's voice. 

Fear, Minivans, and the Father’s Mercy

"But the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid . . . "

Joshua 11:6

“The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”

--George Mueller

I eat the peanut butter cup and I realize with every bite that I am eating it because I am afraid. I’m not even enjoying it, just eating it because I’m worrying about a given situation and I am using chocolate and peanut butter as a substitute for prayer.

I don’t want to pray; I want to worry—and eat chocolate and peanut butter while I do it. It’s “easier” than praying-at the moment. Harder in the long run, as I allow the fear and distrust in God to build in my spirit the more I choose not to trust in Him. Harder because I’m constructing concrete walls that will eventually need to be broken down by the Holy Spirit of God.

George Mueller said, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”

When I choose to coddle anxiety, to coddle fear, rather than to run to Jesus Christ for protection and mercy, I am setting myself up for failure and discouragement, fear, and distraction—none of which honor God nor bring glory to Him, nor help me in my walk with Him.

I say that I am worrying because I am “concerned” about a problem. But my worry isn’t being channeled into prayer—it’s being channeled into chips or ice cream or excessive self-discipline for the sake of trying to retain control where I perceive that I am losing it.

Let it go . . . “Look to the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap and yet their Heavenly Father cares for them.” “Consider the lilies . . .”--beautifully, elegantly clothed and they took no thought for any stitch of their clothing.

Let it go.

In my own life, the Lord has used the example of George Mueller (and if you have never read about Mueller and his faith-run orphanages, I would commend his writings to you) to encourage me to trust the Lord for daily, practical needs. My husband and I attempt by the grace of God to avoid debt. We live dangerously close to the edge of Western so-called “poverty,” but the Lord always supplies our necessities and we have never been forsaken or destitute.

Recently, my faith was tested and strengthened specifically in areas where I had been fearful and doubtful. The Lord was gracious—two of the areas were in response to specific needs that my family had and that we had been praying about. One was a significantly large material need—for a minivan, and one for an infant carrier that I desired—and that would have been a large expense for my husband and me.

I brought both of these needs/wants before the Lord, and I struggled with trusting Him to provide.

In both of these situations, He mercifully and miraculously provided for us—the minivan came in a way that I least expected it—a large dealership that was trying to make a sale at the very end of the year—we usually never buy our vehicles through dealerships, but hadn’t found anything that fit within our budget for weeks, and so finally decided to try a particular dealership that came to my Mom’s mind and that she recommended to us.

We had a set price that we were working with—and at first the salesman seemed that he wouldn’t budge. I told him that we couldn’t go any higher than the price that we offered—he said that he admired the fact that we were trying to avoid debt and went to talk with his managers.

He came back—they would go a little bit lower, but not as low as we had hoped. I firmly replied that the offer that we had made was the best that we could do, and he made the effort to talk to them again.

They would take it, he came back and said—even seeming a bit surprised himself. We would just need to purchase the car in the few days that remained before the New Year—for the sake of their sales reports. The manager came by and joked with us—he seemed to be in a particularly good mood because of the New Year—and because the Lord had put it in his heart to take the offer that we made in answer to prayer.

I rejoiced in my heart because the answer had come in such an unlikely way—and the minivan was even a color and style that I liked, where I was sure (because of our budget) that it might be a hideous shade of orange, or something along those lines. :-))

And the infant carrier—another answer to prayer—a woman that my sister knew was giving hers to someone who needed it—and so the Lord provided for me, for us. He is merciful . . . and when we step back and actively put our trust and faith in Him, even if our efforts are shaky but genuine, He moves even mountains for us.

This may mean of course that we take active steps of obedience and trust—we cast out our nets, so to speak. But if the night lingers long, and no answer has come, if the net remains empty, I need to be careful that I don’t become fearful that He won’t provide for me and try to work out my own deliverance. Those times when it seems like no answer is in sight are the times that He is using to teach us to wait upon Him, to trust in Him and to have confidence that He is Jehovah-Jireh—the Great Provider.

He will fill the nets, after any hope of human help is past; He will work and move in a “mysterious” way that can only be attributed to His mercy and intervention. The glory then is His alone.

This has happened so many times in my life, especially after I grew discouraged and feared that no answer would be given, that we would be “destitute.” It may be “easier” in the short run to trust in bank books and steady jobs, and insurance policies, but after all of these fail us, it is God—the One who we often forget is the real Provider—who is constant, Who will provide for the needs of those who honor Him.

I leave you with these verses. They have been a great encouragement to me and I urge you to meditate on them and to put your trust in our mighty and merciful Heavenly Father whenever you have a need, whether material or spiritual:

Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced; they shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall perish.  You shall seek them and not find them-- those who contended with you. Those who war against you shall be as nothing, as a nonexistent thing.  For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, "Fear not, I will help you. Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I will help you," says the Lord and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff.  You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; you shall rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel.  The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, their tongues fail for thirst. I, the Lord, will hear them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.  I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree, the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box tree together, that they may see and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it. 

(Isaiah 41:11-20)

The Ancient Paths

This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.

Jeremiah 6:16

I was 19 years old and the air was still and ebbed with the warm shadow of summer. I sat on the porch swing with my Mama . . . back and forth, back and forth in the cooling night breeze and the sky was alive with the last splendid hues of the sunset. All around, a fragrance beckoned--the scent of the perennials in the deep grainy soil, a promise of beauty, grace of a scattered seed. I breathed in the thick richness of it all.

It was the summer after I graduated from highschool, the summer after “the decision,” when all the world changed for me, and all that I valued as important faded more sharply beneath the vision of His love and the searing, beautiful pain of the sacrificial knife. 

Suddenly, the Robin song was all a-sky, painting ribbons over the smoky pink rays of the setting sun. Joy of the Robin-song in their nesting season, and I only 19 years old, considering the ancient paths and aching to walk in them, if I could only but find them. 

My Mama beside me; she had walked the ancient paths, learned of the good way, known the Great One in truth. Together, we rocked on the porch swing, flesh of flesh and blood of blood, and listening together to the robin’s joy-song in the coming of their offspring. 

And I her daughter, my Mother who had introduced me to Oswald Chambers’ writings, who always counseled my sisters and I to “count the cost,” and that it was worth it to follow Him, even when it did cost. She bore the love-scars and the stain of the tears of that counsel. 

The ancient paths . . . in a world that has grown so “advanced,” in a Church that has suddenly become “sophisticated,” simple faith in the promises of God replaced by statistics and frantic growth efforts. 

Whatever happened to humble, child-like faith in the promises of God? Whatever happened to fervent Spirit-saturated prayer and obedience to His authority in every aspect of our lives? As Vance Havner says, have we, have I become too “grown-up,” to “become as a little child?” 

I wonder, sometimes, if instead of spending our time and energy on new techniques and programs to “reach the lost,” we “spent” ourselves together in prayer, as the ancient saints did—and moved the Most Holy. E.M. Bounds says, “What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use -- men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer.”

Where are the ancient paths? They are not difficult to find . . . they lie quietly in the worn pages of a cherished Bible, in the prayer meetings of persecuted suffering saints. They lie in the hospital beds of the lonely and afflicted who have learned the secret of being empty of self and filled with the Presence of God. 

They lie in the quietness of seeking God through patient, persevering prayer, in the relinquishment of lesser things to become more filled with glory, in the cup of cold water offered to a little child, in the triumph of self-laid-aside, of decreasing so that He may become more. 

They lie not in me, but in Him . . . and He is the One who leads the feet of those, who through His grace would take up their cross and step onto the worn, narrow, ancient paths... 

The frantic, rushing world all around . . . The Church, racing to keep up with the pace . . . Oftentimes it is in the simplicity of child-like faith that the God of Might moves, and where we least expect. The child-like heart, listening to the Great Father, accepting His strength and grace... 

What paths will I choose? And will I hear the simple Robin song of peace or the cacophony and confusion of this world and all its daily noises? 

It is a difficult way, but eternally its worth is precious . . . Oh Lord, enable me through Your grace to choose the ancient paths...