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This is Max Lucado’s devotional for the week…it’s awesome! I love the way he describes Abraham and Sarah’s situation in a way that we can relate. There are many things in my life that I have thought impossible and I am sure there will be many more. The beautiful thing is that with God, nothing is impossible. Things will continue to appear impossible when I measure their progress on my time line, because my expectations don’t meet those of God. I just have to learn to look at it on God’s time line. Right, easier said than done! Goodness, the father of faith himself, Abraham, laughed when God told him the impossible was possible! What do I do every day when he makes my impossible, well, possible? I’m sure I do more than just laugh at the lunacy.
God probably stands up there looking at me shaking His head, wondering “why does she insist on doing everything on her own?!” He probably adds up the countless examples provided in the Bible and the examples and lessons He has already brought into my life, and thinks, “what more can I provide to make her see?” Not to say that I don’t get it, because I most certainly do in both my brain and heart. I have this unfortunate disorder called “I-can-do-it-by-myself-itis.” It’s really rare, only a few billion people have it. Unfortunately, I’m one of the few billion. It’s a hard struggle every day to fight the tendency to do everything on my own.
Okay, okay…obviously that isn’t a real disorder, but you get my drift. I can pretend all I want, but it really just comes down to being selfish. I’ve spent most of my life taking care of others and think of letting someone else take care of me as selfish and a weakness. I don’t mean to sound harsh or cold, because it isn’t like that at all. I truly love taking care of other people and appreciate that I can do so. I don’t think they are weak for it…I guess it is more of a double standard when you think about it. Really, I don’t even mean “taking care of” as providing material things or meeting physical needs…I’m talking about burdens of the spiritual nature. I don’t want to burden God with my burdens. Well, it doesn’t really work like that with God. He is a “all or nothing” kind of father. We have kind of a sweet deal if you think about it. We are blessed with His amazing grace and mercy and aren’t expected to never sin again, because we are forgiven through Christ’s death. The only thing that God has asked of us is that we love and obey Him…which starts with lifting our burdens to Him. How can we focus on love and obedience, when we are distracted by everything here on earth? That is why we must lift our burdens to Him…it’s not about pride, but about respect for God and being thankful for the gift we could never earn.
Wow, God’s love exceeds far beyond anything we could ever imagine. His grace covers all that we can see. and even more! It’s the gift that keeps on giving! God is awesome!
Okay, I didn’t mean to talk so much. Here is Lucado’s devo…
He Can Do The Impossible by Max Lucado
The kingdom of heaven. Its citizens are drunk on wonder.
Consider the case of Sarai. She is in her golden years, but God promises her a son. She gets excited. She visits the maternity shop and buys a few dresses. She plans her shower and remodels her tent … but no son. She eats a few birthday cakes and blows out a lot of candles … still no son. She goes through a decade of wall calendars … still no son.
So Sarai decides to take matters into her own hands. (“Maybe God needs me to take care of this one.”)
She convinces Abram that time is running out. (“Face it, Abe, you ain’t getting any younger, either.”) She commands her maid, Hagar, to go into Abram’s tent and see if he needs anything. (“And I mean ‘anything’!”) Hagar goes in a maid. She comes out a mom. And the problems begin.
Hagar is haughty. Sarai is jealous. Abram is dizzy from the dilemma. And God calls the baby boy a “wild donkey”—an appropriate name for one born out of stubbornness and destined to kick his way into history.
It isn’t the cozy family Sarai expected. And it isn’t a topic Abram and Sarai bring up very often at dinner.
Finally, fourteen years later, when Abram is pushing a century of years and Sarai ninety … when Abram has stopped listening to Sarai’s advice, and Sarai has stopped giving it … when the wallpaper in the nursery is faded and the baby furniture is several seasons out of date … when the topic of the promised child brings sighs and tears and long looks into a silent sky … God pays them a visit and tells them they had better select a name for their new son.
Abram and Sarai have the same response: laughter. They laugh partly because it is too good to happen and partly because it might. They laugh because they have given up hope, and hope born anew is always funny before it is real.
They laugh at the lunacy of it all.
They laugh because that is what you do when someone says he can do the impossible. They laugh a little at God, and a lot with God—for God is laughing, too. Then, with the smile still on his face, he gets busy doing what he does best—the unbelievable.
He changes a few things—beginning with their names. Abram, the father of one, will now be Abraham, the father of a multitude. Sarai, the barren one, will now be Sarah, the mother.
But their names aren’t the only things God changes. He changes their minds. He changes their faith. He changes the number of their tax deductions. He changes the way they define the word impossible.
Let me preface this one by saying that it is not my intention to offend or push my opinions on anyone. I’m just using my blog as a personal journal…a place to purge my thoughts and opinions.
Everyone has the right to an opinion and I think we should all take the opportunity to form one.
Is it truly about science or is it more about disproving the existence of God?
Seriously…I am a science nerd to the core, but I draw the line at trying to prove useless theories on human existence. God created each and every one of us and it did not begin from a “Big Bang!” I love that we have been able to discover many new advancements from science and I am fascinated by all of it, but I can’t stomach anything that even hints at trying to disprove God’s existence. Not that I think it could ever prove anything other than the fact that the antitheist’s theories simply aren’t true and God will always win the debate.
I’m not worried about it…just annoyed. I think it is a really cool experiment and would love to hear it from a physics point of view. I don’t understand why they have to shamelessly claim that it might find the “God Particle?” God definitely has a part in it…he just plays a different role than scientists claim. He is the creator…he created every single thing that makes up this earth. I know they aren’t going to find the answer they are looking for, because it simply isn’t possible. The “God Particle” does not exist because it isn’t how we were created. There may be smaller and smaller particles to discover, but that’s just it…it’s just science.
Here are the two articles that I just read…go ahead, read them for yourself and form your own opinion.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/158075
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-text/6
I’m telling you…this man truly gets it! I can’t believe how often his daily devotionals say the exact thing I needed to hear! Here is today’s awesome entry from Oswald’s “My Utmost for His Highest.”
DIFFUSIVENESS OF LIFE
“Rivers of living water.” John 7:38
A river touches places of which its source knows nothing, and Jesus says if we have received of His fulness, however small the visible measure of our lives, out of us will flow the rivers that will bless to the uttermost parts of the earth. We have nothing to do with the outflow – “This is the work of God that ye believe. . . .” God rarely allows a soul to see how great a blessing he is.
A river is victoriously persistent, it overcomes all barriers. For a while it goes steadily on its course, then it comes to an obstacle and for a while it is baulked, but it soon makes a pathway round the obstacle. Or a river will drop out of sight for miles, and presently emerge again broader and grander than ever. You can see God using some lives, but into your life an obstacle has come and you do not seem to be of any use. Keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you round the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never get your eyes on the obstacle or on the difficulty. The obstacle is a matter of indifference to the river which will flow steadily through you if you remember to keep right at the Source. Never allow anything to come between yourself and Jesus Christ, no emotion, or experience; nothing must keep you from the one great sovereign Source.
Think of the healing and far-flung rivers nursing themselves in our souls! God has been opening up marvellous truths to our minds, and every point He has opened up is an indication of the wider power of the river He will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has nourished in you mighty torrents of blessing for others.
Here is Oswald Chambers’ awesome devo entry for today (Tuesday):
THE SACRAMENT OF SACRIFICE
“He that believeth in Me . . out of him shall flow. . . .” John 7:38
Jesus did not say – “he that believeth in Me shall realize the blessing of the fulness of God,” but – “he that believeth in Me out of him shall escape everything he receives.” Our Lord’s teaching is always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.
When Mary of Bethany broke the box of precious ointment and poured it on Jesus’ head, it was an act for which no one else saw any occasion; the disciples said it was a waste. But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said that wherever His gospel was preached “this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.” Our Lord is carried beyond Himself with joy when He sees any of us doing what Mary did, not being set on this or that economy, but being abandoned to Him. God spilt the life of His Son that the world might be saved; are we prepared to spill out our lives for Him?
“He that believeth in Me out of him shall flow rivers of living water” – hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. It is time now to break the life, to cease craving for satisfaction, and to spill the thing out. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?” ~Utmost for His Highest
