Notes of Faith December 25, 2021

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. — Isaiah 35:10 NKJV

The black, velvety sky was clear and studded with sparkling stars that had looked down on earth since the beginning of time.

Shepherds appeared to be sitting idly by their flocks but in fact were keeping a sharp lookout for anything or anyone who might harm the sheep entrusted to their care. In the distance, the lights from the town could be seen and the noisy commotion could be heard as more people were coming into the town than the town could hold.

On the clear night air, sound traveled easily, and somewhere from the direction of the village inn, someone slammed a door.

And a Baby cried.

The Seed of the woman, who would open Heaven’s gate and welcome any and all who place their faith in Him… had been given!

The Hope that was born that night continues to radiate down through the years until it envelops your heart and mine.

~ God’s Story

Excerpted from The Joy of My Heart by Anne Graham Lotz, copyright Anne Graham Lotz. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Jesus is born! Joy to the world!

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord. 
— Luke 2:10-11

We pray that today is a day of celebration for you as all believers across the globe rejoice in the incarnation of the Christ, our Savior, our King!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 24, 2021

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the One who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him.” — Matthew 2:1-2

Last night my husband and I stood outside, bundled in our jackets. He slipped an arm around my shoulders as we took in the sky show, our breath forming tiny “puff clouds.” Stars above twinkled and glistened like a blanket of crystal. Could I be gazing at the very star that portended Jesus’s arrival?

Conversation fell silent as we contemplated the sight.

Far away and long ago, a new star appeared in the sky that marked the birth of the King of kings. The wise men had heard the prophecies surrounding His birth, as told in Numbers 24:17 and Isaiah 60:3, and they heeded those words. They set out on a two-year mission, traveling only at night. It couldn’t have been easy. Their hope for the future fueled the journey.

As the heavens dazzled my eyes, I reflected on the dreams caught up in that particular star and all it represented.

In Revelation 22:16, Jesus tells us He is “the bright Morning Star” (NIV).

I am blessed. I don’t need to cross deserts, craning my neck as I seek direction. I have Jesus guiding me all day, every day. His glory fills the celestial skies, even as His divine hope fills my heart.

Spend a few minutes tonight to enjoy the stars above and thank Jesus for the blessing of His special star.

Excerpted from Mornings with Jesus 2022, copyright Guideposts.

It’s Christmas Eve! What better time to gaze at the heavens like the generations before us who have sought Jesus and found Him, too, and worship Him wholeheartedly? 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 23, 2021

I’ve always loved the Advent season. There is something uniquely special about preparing my heart and mind to celebrate the joy of Jesus’ birth and all that His life represents.

This season can be exciting. It can even be enchanting. But one thing I’ve found over the years is that for most, myself included, this season is far from easy.

Most of us can attest that Advent and Christmas can come and go like a blur. It’s so easy to slip into “holiday mode,” where everything speeds up and we find ourselves busy, stressed, and spiraling in overwhelming feelings and emotions. For some, this time of year can mark a season of loss, a sharp reminder of what once was and is no more. It can be a time of feeling ashamed, lonely, overlooked, or even abandoned.

I don’t know what these days evoke in your heart, but I do know that this season is an active battleground. And as such, each year it has become increasingly important for me to be aware of who is sitting at my table.

When there is great possibility for praise, our Enemy is lurking, and he only needs the tiniest crack, a sliver of opportunity, to work his way into our space. In a season where we should be most on our guard, we often get crammed, consumeristic, and caught up in the rush and crush of it all, and we lower our defenses. And before we can sing the first line of “Silent Night,” just like that, the devil is sitting at our table, beginning to win the battle for our minds.

Suddenly, we’re halfway to Christmas and we look up and realize we’ve been entertaining the Enemy. We’ve started listening to his lies, hearing things like I am a failure. No one cares about me. I deserve to be bitter. Or, it’ll always be this way.

But here’s the reality we need to reclaim this Advent season: No thoughts like those are from God! Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd of John 10 and Psalm 23, never tells you that you are a failure. He doesn’t prompt you to worry or provoke you to fear.

He provides clarity, not chaos. He provides green pastures, not dry wastelands. If fear, worry, temptation, a feeling of worthlessness, or a sense of confusion is in your life, then guess what? The Enemy has shown up and dropped a seed in your thinking.

You might be reading this and thinking, Wow, Louie, thanks for the holiday cheer. But hold on! I’ve got more for you.

Just because the Enemy is active doesn’t mean he has to be effective.

In fact, the very Person we are celebrating during Advent has already won our war and has given us the weapons we need to take back our table and recover peace and confidence in the power of a good and gracious God.

Through Jesus, we have the ability to “take every thought captive” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV). When the Enemy schemes and tries to dredge up our past, our pain, or our problems, we can stand on the truth of Scripture and bind those lies in Jesus’ name! You may think that sounds too intense or like too much work, but let me tell you something: If a thought is not taken captive by you in Jesus’ name, that thought will take you captive. Either you will bind the thought, or the thought will, in time, bind you.

So how do we make sure there is no seat available for the Enemy this Advent season? How do we keep our eyes fixed on the King, lingering with Him instead of getting sucked into the swirling vortex that threatens to crash in from every side? Here’s how: We become the DJ of our thoughts, and we reframe Advent from a season of activity to a season of adoration and anticipation. We become more concerned with who is at our table rather than what is, or isn’t, happening around us.

For me, I’ve found that a good and practical place to start is by following the words of Philippians 4:8:

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. — NIV

This has become my road map, my compass. Every morning, I wake up and ask God to help me cling to and concentrate on His truth for that day. I can’t completely eliminate the Enemy’s schemes; none of us can. But I can prepare my heart and ready my mind to take every thought captive for my good and God’s glory. When I do this, my Advent season no longer becomes one of shame, or stress, or fear, or guilt. Instead, it becomes a season of hope, of courage, of worship, and of great promise.

God has come near to us, and perhaps there is no better way to experience His nearness than to sit down and enjoy a feast with Him at the table He has prepared specifically for us.

Written for Devotionals Daily by Louie Giglio, author Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table.

Are you ready to enjoy a feast with God? Today is a perfect day to evaluate your thinking and take every thought captive so that we can enjoy more, rejoice more, celebrate more, worship Him more!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 22, 2021

Prepare for God’s arrival! Make the road straight and smooth, a highway fit for our God. Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks. Then God’s bright glory will shine and everyone will see it. Yes. Just as God has said. — Isaiah 40:3-5 MSG

We often forget that four hundred long, tumultuous years are compressed into the single page that bifurcates our holy scriptures into an old and new testament. Within the infinity of that blank page, God’s people waited and waited and waited in the deafening silence and weighty absence of prophetic words or divine appearances. I can only imagine how their once-helpful hope became heavy and burdensome, rather than buoying, as their faith faded in the long-expected Messiah. The ancient promises rang empty, their hope turned to shame, and their suffering bore out no redemption. Isaiah told them to prepare the way for the Lord, but it seemed that Lord had gotten sidetracked on the journey. The God who created and claimed them had abandoned them, by all accounts.

But, in His good timing, God hurled John the Baptist into time and space as the forerunner of their sworn Savior. John’s appearance was a thrill of hope that transformed their passive wait into an activated expectation. 

There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light. — John 1:6-9

John announced the flesh-and-bones manifestation of Christ in the person of Jesus. God graciously allowed Christ, who had already been suffusing God’s story since creation in many different forms, to live in the body of a person. Christ as and in Jesus — Immanuel — allowed humanity to experience, internalize, and empathize with God in an unprecedented way — as a friend, a teacher, a brother. A Man. The simple, surrendered, and selfless way of Jesus rescued humanity from the tyranny of self, and redeemed our suffering as an opportunity for refinement. 

This initial advent of Jesus gave us the tools for building the Kingdom of God. Now we find ourselves in a second advent, another kind of intertestamental period in which we anticipate the consummation of God’s Kingdom — the lasting redemption of creation and restoration of humanity. But this time, we don’t have to wait in silence and or suffer in vain. We wait equipped with the example of Jesus, who used His earthly life to evidence how to leverage our suffering into endurance, our endurance into character, and our character into hope (Romans 5:3-5). 

Jesus perfectly endured the sufferings of a human life, as well as the cosmic sufferings of humanity’s scapegoat. He allowed the suffering to push him deeper into compassion, patience, meekness, humility, and hope in the love of our Good Father. He bore out that hope to its ultimate form: resurrection, the transcendence of death and darkness.

With this subversive alchemy, Jesus invites us to build the Kingdom of God not with empires or infrastructure, but with the unlikely mortar of suffering and the intangible stones of hope.

Isaiah’s call to straighten the road, fill the valleys, clear out the rocks, and smooth the ruts has nothing to do with the terrain of a highway through a wilderness. Rather, his words are an exhortation to spiritual rehabilitation to prepare a home for Divine Love in the wilderness of our human hearts. Just as a highway cannot be cleared without back-breaking physical labor, our souls cannot be formed into more gracious, patient, and peace-filled shapes without first rubbing against the sharp edges of suffering.

As we inhabit the space between the two advents, the waiting weighs heavy. But we can wait well as Jesus’s current forerunners by emulating John, Jesus’s original forerunner, who used his life to bear witness to the Light. It is a great comfort to remember that we are not the Light; we’re merely reflections of it. When we put ourselves in places only meant for God, we will be crushed under the weight of expectations and burdens we could never begin to bear. We will not suffer perfectly or wait all that patiently, yet we have been sent by God to this time and space, these relationships and influence, for our good and His glory. And this is great news. God invites us to be necessary — indispensable even — to this greater movement of light in the darkness, and that should inspire us to do the things we think we cannot do.

As we bear witness to the Light and share our stories of grace in ordinary places to ordinary people, the waiting — and even the suffering — become oddly sacred.

Story by story, witness by witness, hardship by hardship, grace by grace, we build the heavenly highway through the heart of humanity. For now, we illuminate the not-yet, already-here Kingdom by steadily reflecting the one true Light as best we can.

Together, we’ll wait with baited breath and hope-thrilled hearts for Christ to be once, and forevermore, here with us.

Matt. 5:14 YOU ARE the light of the world, Jesus said!  Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Keep doing the work God has given you to do as long as He leaves you here to do it!  Pray for the return of Jesus to take us to be with Him forever!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 21, 2021

Messy Endings

When songwriters are trying to figure something out, they often write a song about it. The song I wrote was called “I Can Just Be Me.” The lyrics begin with me trying to do everything but not measuring up. Then in the chorus I ask God to be everything that I can’t be. 

I’ve been doing all that I can 

To hold it all together 

Piece by piece.

I’ve been feeling like a failure, 

Trying to be braver 

Than I could ever be. 

It’s just not me. 

So be my healer, be my comfort, be my peace. 

Cause I can be broken, I can be needy, 

Lord I need you now to be,

Be my God, so I can just be me. 

So be my father, my mighty warrior, be my king. 

Cause I can be scattered, frail and shattered, 

Lord I need you now to be,

Be my God, so I can just be me. 

And be my savior, be my lifeline, won’t you be my everything. 

Cause I’m so tired of trying to be someone.

I was never meant to be.

Be my God.

Please be my God.

Be my God.

So I can just be me.

So I can just be me.

I can just be me. 

And as I worked through the ideas behind the song, I realized that when we’re living in brokenness we can sometimes feel as though we’re less than or not good enough. Sometimes that leads us to trying harder. Often it leads to us failing further. But we have to give up that idea and settle into who God created us to be. 

Looking in the mirror that morning, it was clear I wouldn’t win a Best Mom trophy, but that was okay. I was finally able to embrace the fact that I am a working mom whose daughter might climb more catwalks in an arena than trees on a playground. She’ll start trends by wearing her pjs to church and blowing kisses (though they might be bloody) to her audience.

But she’ll also know that there was a Man who shed His blood for her when He died on a cross. And she’ll never think of church as a place we go, but something we do wherever we are. 

Mine is motherhood redefined with God at the center rather than my achievements at the center. But it is a center that is always in flux. Just when we started to get good at being Josie’s parents, our little family of three added two more. On September 18, 2014, we welcomed Josie’s new little brothers, Benjamin Cary and Griffin James, who doubled not only the joy in our house but also the chaos. Their birth was a reminder to me that good and beautiful things can come from pain. My labor was roughly eight hours long, and I said Jesus’ name a lot — not in vain, but in pain. Of course, I would go through every minute of the pregnancy and the delivery over and over again to have such precious boys. The temporary pain I endured was worth it.

When we see the results of my pain in the faces of my children, I would do it all over again. But think about the birth from the twins’ perspective. When the boys first entered this world, they left the security and warmth of the womb to be violently faced with the bright lights and cold air of the hospital delivery room.

They could only cry, but if they could have talked, I imagine they would have said something like, “What did you do that for? We wanted to stay where we were, warm and happy!” 

I wonder how many times I’ve said that to God? 

When we are on the receiving end of pain and can’t yet see or understand why we’re in such trials, we can find it so hard to trust. But as imperfect mothers and fathers, we often inflict pain on our children for their own good. Whether it is birthing them, giving them their immunization shots, or putting them into time-out so they don’t touch a hot stove, we could be seen as the source of their pain, even though we’re only doing what is best for them. 

So how much more must God, our perfect Father, be doing for us when we’re experiencing pain? Like any good parent, God fully understands the pain we feel, and He is with us in it, but He allows us to go through it because He has a greater good in mind. 

Can we trust Him in that? It’s hard, I know. But that’s also why we place our hope in Him. Our hope is that one day the pain will end and we’ll live with Him in a pain-free eternity, where there is no more brokenness and we are all made whole. 

I know there are days in the midst of our brokenness and our trials, when it is so hard to cling to that idea. It feels as though it takes more faith to believe it than we have. Fortunately, God doesn’t even demand supersized faith from us. In fact, Jesus says all we need is faith the size of a seed — a mustard seed — smaller than many of the spices in your cabinet. A seed so small it gets lost under a fingernail or stuck in the fold of our palm. That’s all we need in order to do what seems impossible. 

Jesus said, 

Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. — Matthew 17:20

Faith that small. Because God is that big. I cling to that thought both as a mother and as a wife. The older I get the more I realize there are few seasons of life that can be labeled “good” or “bad.” Right now, I am in a really sweet season of life. Whatever season Martin and I face, whatever new blessings we face, we find new things that rub up against Martin’s disabilities and new mourning takes place. The good news is that our mourning often takes place, humorously, in the midst of baby projectile poop, while I am trying to feed the same twin twice because one of us forgot which twin was already fed. (And once again, that “one” is me, not Martin.) 

Our life looks much like the life of any set of parents with a newborn baby. Except that we have two babies. 

And a two-year-old. And a husband with a disability. 

Okay, so, it probably doesn’t look anything like anyone else’s life. It probably looks a lot funnier. But that’s okay, because it’s not about us. If you knocked on my door right now and asked to use the bathroom, you’d likely find there is no soap at the sink and the hand towel is actually a dishrag. The good towels are starting to mildew in the basement in a pile of laundry I have labeled “not yet urgent.” 

Our dinner menu ranges from “What menu?” to “takeout.” When someone wants a snack, I try to give them something healthy. “You can eat the Cheerios under the couch, but not the cheese; it’s getting old.” 

The weekend before our Christmas production at Perimeter, I was at the church on Sunday for fourteen hours straight. Josie was with me. When I was onstage, she was holding my hand the entire time. Some might find that annoying, but I think it is precious memories in the making. That’s just what our life looks like. 

We were both exhausted by the time we finally left that evening! As soon as we got home and I started feeding the twins, to show her appreciation and contribute to the memories of the day, Josie vomited. That meant another trip out to get Pedialyte and more prayers that no one else in the house would get whatever bug she picked up. 

What can you do in a situation like that? You can cry or you can laugh. I choose to laugh and think it could be worse. In a few more years, I’ll still be doing the Christmas production, I’ll be older and more exhausted afterward, and at that time, I could be bringing home three vomiting kids! 

As you’ve read my story and compared yours to mine, maybe your story is harder or maybe it’s easier. But whatever it is, I encourage you to cling to Scripture because that and laughter is what will get you through. 

I know people look at our Elvington family and say, “What a mess!” And I’d agree. But despite our brokenness, despite the trials we have endured and will continue to fight through, despite the days when our faith is low, and our patience is lower, we are blessed. 

We are blessed by a God who loves us and will never leave us. 

We are blessed with the gift of his grace that allows us to spend eternity with him in a place free of trials and free of brokenness. 

We are blessed because we have a loving family who gets to serve our great, big God every single day. Whether we are at home or on the road, for us, life is an abundantly beautiful, blessed mess. Despite our brokenness, we wouldn’t want it any other way, for it is through our brokenness that God is the hero of our story. 

We’re all just a phone call away. And when we get that unexpected phone call, we think life as we know it is over. But life as we’ve yet to know it and how God might use it has just begun. 

Share your story. Give God the glory. And live a better broken. 

Excerpted from When God Doesn't Fix It by Laura Story, copyright Laura Story Elvington. 

Is your story messy? Even in the middle of the Christmas season, or maybe especially in this season, our stories can be used to help and uplift others going through the same things. And, God gets the glory! Share it!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 20, 2021

Christmas is the time of year when you are actually excited for snow, cold, and all things made of wool. We have a Savior to celebrate and a house that smells like peppermint candles and cookies.

Come February though you start to look and feel like a bloated version of Wendy Torrance from that Stephen King movie, The Shining. Your house smells like crockpot meatballs, and sadly so do you.

To remedy the winter monotony I like to spend most of February sharing pictures with my friends of summers past. When I look at them I can almost feel the warm summer sun on my face. I can hear the laughter we shared as a group.

This last summer we spent an entire week with our friends on the road exploring this amazing country of ours. Our final stop was the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.

It’s a unique place where you can rent sand boards so you can slide down the sides of the dunes. Those will be amazing pictures to share come February.

As much as I complain about winter though, I’m actually less of a hot weather person. I don’t deal with heat easily and neither does my 14 year old son, Wyatt. About an hour into our sand dune adventure my son was wilting on the vine and when he told me he was thirsty that was the cue that sent my friend Tracy and I back to the parking lot for more water.

When Tracy arrived back at the dunes, Wyatt and his two friends were nowhere in sight.

Someone had heard that they had the brilliant teenage boy idea of climbing to the top of “Star Dune” the tallest dune in the park. Worse yet is the fact that none of the boys had a phone or any drinking water.

Almost an hour and a half later two of the three boys returned, but my son was not with them. Wyatt was determined to make it to the top.

With sand now reaching temperatures over 100 degrees, and the last words he spoke to me about being thirsty, inwardly I was a wreck. My imagination got the best of me and I finally broke and flagged down a park ranger. As I told him my tale of woe and gave him a description of the last thing my son was wearing, my husband stood waiting at the edge of the sand looking something like that father in the parable about the prodigal son. Dan got the call that we had been praying for.

Wyatt had returned to the group with the stench of teenage male bravado all over him, he had made it to the top, completed his mission towards manhood and could not understand why anyone would even have the gall to worry, “what’s the big deal?”

Those are the parenting moments that make you think, “I could hug this kid forever, but also ground him FOR LIFE!”

Before I could get to Wyatt I was thankful my friend Laura called my cell phone with a “heads-up.” She told me that when Wyatt returned to the group the first words out of his mouth were, “I have never accomplished anything like that in my life.”

Watching our kids grow into full sized versions takes an amazing amount of courage on our part. We put in the work but in reality so much of parenting is trusting their lives into the capable hands of God and trying not to get in the way of His plan.

I constantly have to remind myself that “My kids” are actually His.

He already has something glorious and purposeful planned for them and that’s the reason we are born. To live a life that glorifies Him.

I’ll be honest with you, in the days prior to our trip I had been praying for ways my son could see his worth, like many of us Wyatt struggles with a lack of self-confidence. That day I hugged my son and told him that I was proud of him. He had the courage to just “go for it.” Sure, next time take water.

Looking back I’m also glad Wyatt didn’t take a cell phone, because I would have called him and told him to come back. My “safety” plan would have spoiled the thing I had actually prayed for.

Fear has us creating all kinds of these safety plans that aren’t really safe at all.

We are not in control, not in the least and anxiety sets in because deep down we know it. Thankfully, God became flesh to fulfill His own miraculous safety plan. The only plan that we can truly bank on.

Despite all the amazing things that Mary and Joseph had experienced and witnessed that first Christmas night in the manger, they were still human parents who had a dangerous world to deal with and now with a newborn baby.

In their humanity they could not have known that Jesus was more than a Gift just for them, but for all of us. Thirty-three years after Jesus was born, Mary watched as her son was put to death on a Cross so that we could live a life in relationship with our Holy Creator. In her humanity she could not have known what would happen three days later. How helpless she must of felt.

But then Jesus walked out of that tomb.

With all the worries I had in 2021, I found myself only weak on the days (or moments) when I failed to place my circumstances at the feet of His glorious safety plan. I’m heading into 2022 making plans for an infinite future. For all who “believe,” no matter what happens, our future has never been brighter.

Excerpted from Fields of Grace by Cara Whitney, copyright Cara Whitney.

We’re not in control. Our plans aren’t “safe”. We’re only safe in the hands of God! 

No matter what plans you have for Christmas . . . we wish you a merry one and pray that you are spending time with family and your Savior!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 19, 2021

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest Heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.”
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

When the angels had left them and gone into Heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

“Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the Baby, who was lying in the manger. When they
had seen Him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this Child, and all who
heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and
pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they
had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
— Luke 2:8-20

I love this story, and I especially love that it’s a familiar one.

Reading an old story with new eyes always gives God a chance to speak a fresh word and remind us that His Word is alive and that He desires to meet us there!

When I read this, and I try to put myself in the scene, I can’t help but wonder what it was like not only to see a host of angels but to hear them! Can you imagine? I picture the shepherds bumping elbows like, “Did you hear that!? Do you hear what I hear?!”

With the theme of hearing in mind, I want to spend a few moments with you, asking ourselves a few questions.

I think it can be easy to read a Bible story like this one and think, “I love that for them. It’s magical and Christmassy, but what does this mean for me? What does it mean for my life today?

What does this mean for my relationship with Jesus?”

Let’s start here:

How do I hear God’s voice?

You might be saying to yourself, Jennie, this scripture is amazing and inspiring, but I’ve never experienced anything like this. I haven’t experienced the angels telling me at work how awesome God is.

One of the best parts of this story is that the shepherds didn’t know that these angels would show up that night. It was a regular night on the job for them, and they had shown up for their shift on a seemingly insignificant night, and yet, the significant happened that very night.

How are you leaning into where God has you right now?

You may not be in the place you want to be; you may be experiencing things that you don’t want to experience – the heartache, the struggles of life. But how are you being present in your job, in your home, in your school? God can speak to you there, and He wants to speak to you right where you are.

I don’t think it’s about hearing God audibly (although He can do that!) I don’t think it’s about whether or not you see the angels in the skies. I believe it’s about hearing from God in your everyday life. It’s about reading the Bible every day and carving out time to spend with your Savior. It’s about walking in the things He’s called you to and asking Him to speak to you. It’s about being willing, and it’s about waiting on Him and letting Him lead right here and right now.

What does my life sound like?

What does my life sound like? If we genuinely tune our ears to hear from God, to hear the sound of Heaven, we will live lives that sound like Heaven. What does Heaven sound like? What does a life in tune with God’s word sound like? My husband likes to say, “worship is the sound of a healthy soul.” Are you letting God’s love and word and worship pour into you so that in return, it can come ringing out of you?

Psalms 89:15 says,

Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound. They walk, O LORD, in the light of Your countenance.

The goal of our lives isn’t to live perfectly. Sweetness, love, and kindness won’t always come naturally from our lives. We’ll have bad days and hard moments, we’ll make mistakes, but the goal is this: that we imperfectly follow Jesus, that we forgive, that we show grace, that we love, and that the overarching sound of our lives is God’s love, His grace, His kindness, and His word.

What do I hear God saying to me?

Think about this for a moment, when was the first time you heard God speak to you? And again, I’m not necessarily saying audibly, but when was the first time your ears were opened, and you first heard that God loved you, and that He created you, and that He had a plan for you? Think about that first time. If you’ve forgotten, God’s telling you right now that He loves you.

Sometimes we can let the things we’re struggling with, the life that we’re barely making it through, the madness or the pain of the holiday season keep us from hearing the fact that God loves us so much. And if you’ve never heard, hear now what I’ve heard, that your Father in Heaven loves you.

He created you. He created you with a purpose in mind. And He loved you so much that He sent His son Jesus, our Savior, into this world as a baby. So that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

When we hear God’s voice, it changes our life, and my prayer is that you wouldn’t ignore Him speaking to you but that you would hear Him. And that your everyday life would be filled with purpose and joy and power as you surrender to Him and His voice in every little moment.

Written for Devotionals Daily by Jennie Lusko, author of The Fight to Flourish.

Are you listening to God? Do you hear His voice? He created you for relationship so that you might know Him, and love Him, and hear Him, and be known, loved, and heard by Him! 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 18, 2021

We’ve all had to wait.

This Advent comes at the tail end of long months of waiting for so many of us.

As I assess my friends around me, many of us are waiting on more than merely the day when this virus no longer impacts everything.

I, like you (I suspect), have a deeper layer of waiting. Another waiting room that’s more personal… more costly and painful, that is running simultaneous to this cultural wait.

This isn’t my first wait. Eight years ago today, my body did what we thought (for over a decade) that it maybe never could. I birthed a child. I don’t hear a single birth story without remembering the long years of feeling on the outside of those stories — that they would never be mine.

Neither do I now enter a single Advent season without remembering that longest-awaited advent in my life.

Every one of us carries a story in our bodies, behind our eyes.

And in the one-dimensional way we humans operate… we’re often looking for the end of it, the last five minutes of the movie or those eight pages of the book where it all makes sense. But most of our life is lived in the middle of that story – most of our lives are lived in the tension of the advent wait.

In the middle of this story in the picture (at which you’re looking for the last few minutes) was a girl who knew little of God’s pursuit of her but who needed her life to stop moving while her friends’ lives barreled ahead in order to believe that she was being pursued. In the middle of this story was a girl you would have pitied, but who God chose… to experience the silence of waiting and loss so she could begin to discern His tender whispers into the dark corners of her life.

Waiting, though gloriously purposed, is terribly uncomfortable for most of us.

And as I look back on my earlier wait, I see this question that emerged from a handful of friends: why keep hoping?

I might translate their question of me to: why voluntarily stay in this pain?

I heard it spoken over my marriage years ago, from a friend wondering if I should re-consider our covenant when things got especially tough. Another voiced it, curious about why I would still pray for God to enable me to conceive and carry a baby after we had adopted children. And another, feeding my impatience during our prolonged adoption process by suggesting quicker alternatives stateside.

Essentially: why stay a minute longer in this pain when there might be a way out?

One of the biggest challenges of walking through our infertility and marriage struggles was a world around me that wanted me to be “over it already.”

But as I consider both our Advent wait and the real-life wait that so many of us know (or have known), I can’t deny that we have formed a life-fight against the very place where hope — real hope — is birthed. (Read Romans 5:3-5)

In our exuberance to stop the waiting pains, we shortcut how God comes to those who wait. We shortcut what happens in the painful wait.

Today you’ll go to church or the grocery store or the soccer field and be surrounded by scores of people in the middle of their story, all desperate to reach the last five minutes. You’ll face scores of people who despise their wait for an advent. We’re a “breakthrough” culture at risk of missing the most significant breakthrough because our eyes haven’t yet been trained to see the power in the middle of the story.

It’s the middle that makes us.

I’ve known both sides of the pendulum swing — working fiercely to avoid pain or living under the despair of waiting. But I land here: there’s a slip of a girl with little notoriety who, when asked to carry the Savior of the world in her girlhood frame, immediately responded, “may everything you have said about me come true” (Luke 1:38).

Grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents passed to this girl-child a posture of waiting for the Messiah, such that when she heard the call to waiting, the expectancy of God rushed through her guttural response.

When pressed, one day, I want to have this response… to know, so personally, what the lilt of His voice sounds like, the soft, distinctive way He comes to people like me who sit and wait, the feel of His arms around me as I press into His chest… to say with my life:

“whatever you want of me, God.”

If you’ve been counseling your friends not to stay a moment longer inside their pain or their wait, irritated by their inability to get to the other side or to learn the lesson… If you’ve been mumble-coaching yourself to just get out of this, already — to stop struggling, to get to the other side of this and soon:

perhaps there’s a third way.

I promise it’s longer.

It may not be well received.

At times it might be excruciating.

And it’s full of life.

This is our wait for advent.

But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint. — Isaiah 40:31

Written by Sara Hagerty, author of Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet, copyright Sara Hagerty.

What are you waiting for? Has it been painfully long? Do you wish for a quick out? What if God has you in this wait on purpose? What if it’s for your benefit and His glory?

Happy Birthday to my dear wife Robin!  We have celebrated 42+ years together and wait on the Lord for the hope of still more.  God is good.  He is always good!  Wait and trust in His love for you in all things . . .

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 17, 2021

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. — Luke 2:19

Each year during the holidays, our family pulls out the home movies, loads a bowl with truffle-salt popcorn, and settles in for our absolute favorite trilogy of the year: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Honey, I Blew Up the Kids; and Star Wars. No, I’m not talking about the feature films that made over a billion dollars at the box office. I’m talking about the short films inspired by them, starring the Lyons family, circa 2006–2007.

As new parents in our twenties with almost no energy to spare, Gabe and I received some valuable advice from Mark and Jan Foreman, our mentors and friends, who had managed to raise their kids to become creative adults. Mark and Jan championed one big idea:

when our children come to us with a crazy idea of an experience they’d like to create, our answer should always be yes.

At age four Pierce wanted to make films, and what better place to start than our basement? The first short film would be Honey, I Blew Up the Kids. Cade was the baby, Kennedy was the babysitter, Pierce was the professor, and Gabe and I were, well, the parents. The growing machine was our vacuum with its detachable suction tube and the Hot Wheels cars and racetrack made up the city once Cade was blown up. In five short minutes, after terrorizing the faux city, Cade was shrunk back down to a normal size and reunited with his mom and dad in our minivan in the garage, all while the cameras kept rolling.

Then came the Luke Skywalker lightsaber phase. Wearing a sash, my brown western boots, and a fuzzy eye mask strapped around his head for a beard, five-year-old Pierce played Luke. I was Princess Leia with two braided side buns and a white bathrobe. Cade was the villain in a voice-activated Darth Vader helmet and Gabe’s black coat. My favorite scene is the finale, where Luke brags to Leia how he was “pushin’ ’im and shovin’ ’im” (Darth) until victory was won, all while drinking a can of Coke.

Saying yes became the way we engaged with our children. It challenged us to be creative, even when they asked for improbable experiences like making feature films. But it also offered me something just as valuable — especially on rough days when I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I was motivated to push apathy to the side as Pierce or Kennedy or Cade asked me to join in their wild creativity.

Imagination precedes creativity.1

When we break out of the cycle of drudgery and focus on creating memories with those around us, we start to find the wonder in life.

The next time you find yourself at the end of a difficult week, instead of disengaging or escaping, what if you made a memory? What if you completed some kind of family project or made a family film? What if you baked Christmas cookies in July or created a silly new game? Making memories helps us step outside ourselves, even if just for a moment. In seasons of great stress or anxiety, it might be the very thing that turns everything around.

Reflect

Are you feeling stuck in an endless loop of To-Do lists? When was the last time you said yes to something creative and fun?

Make a memory this week. And once it’s made, take note of how it made you — and those you love — feel.

1. Dan Hunter, “Imagination Precedes Creativity,” You Can Only Imagine (blog), H-IQ, July 6, 2017

Excerpted from A Surrendered Yes by Rebekah Lyons, copyright Rebekah Lyons.

What are you doing that’s fun this week? Make a memory! Do something unexpected! Your family will always remember the time you did something unusual and memorable.  Looking forward to hearing from those of you who can stop even for a moment from things to do and see what a creative moment brings.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith December 16, 2021

Article by Joe Rigney
Teacher, desiringGod.org

One of the reasons to read the Old Testament is so you can be shocked at the right times when reading the New Testament. Philippians 2, for example, is a wonderful, glorious passage — but it becomes a shocking passage when read in light of Isaiah 45.

Isaiah 45 records the prophet’s oracle concerning Cyrus, king of Persia. Despite being a pagan ruler, Cyrus is the Lord’s anointed, his christ with a lowercase c (Isaiah 45:1). Though Cyrus does not know Yahweh (God’s personal name, Exodus 3:14), Yahweh knows Cyrus, names Cyrus, calls Cyrus, and equips Cyrus to fulfill God’s purposes by restoring the fortunes of Israel following their exile to Babylon (Isaiah 45:4–5). And Yahweh acts in this way so that all people will know that “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5–6).

“One of the reasons to read the Old Testament is so that you can be shocked when reading the New Testament.”

In fact, the uniqueness of the Lord becomes the dominant theme in the oracle of Isaiah 45. Again and again, Yahweh asserts his unique divine prerogatives. He alone is the Creator God. He forms light and creates darkness (Isaiah 45:7). He sends showers to the earth and causes plants to grow (Isaiah 45:8). He is the potter who forms the clay and the father who makes all mankind (Isaiah 45:9).

God Over All

Isaiah draws our attention back to Genesis 1:

Thus says the Lord,

who created the heavens

     (he is God!),

who formed the earth and made it

      (he established it;

he did not create it empty,

     he formed it to be inhabited!). (Isaiah 45:18)

Not only did he alone create the world, but he alone governs it from beginning to end.

Thus says the Lord,

     the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him [Cyrus]:

“Ask me of things to come;

     will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?

I made the earth

     and created man on it;

it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,

     and I commanded all their host.” (Isaiah 45:11–12)

And not only is Yahweh alone the Creator God; he alone is “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isaiah 45:21). Yahweh is distinct from all the gods of the nations, since the pagans “carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save” (Isaiah 45:20). Yet even the nations will one day recognize the futility of their idols and acknowledge the God of Israel (Isaiah 45:14).

There Is No Other

Again and again in this chapter, the Lord, through his prophet, shouts that he alone is God. Hear the trumpet blast of God’s absolute uniqueness sound seven times in this one chapter.

Verse 5: “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.”

Verse 6: “There is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.”

Verse 14: “They will plead with you, saying: ‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.’”

Verse 18: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.”

Verse 21: “Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.”

Verse 22: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”

Verse 24: “Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength.”

And that is why it is no surprise in this passage when Yahweh declares,

By myself I have sworn;

     from my mouth has gone out in righteousness

     a word that shall not return:

“To me every knee shall bow,

     every tongue shall swear allegiance.” (Isaiah 45:23)

As the only supreme God, he has no one greater by whom he can swear (Hebrews 6:13), and his sure and certain word establishes that all shall bow to him and him alone. Every tongue will confess that Yahweh is Lord.

One Shocking Name

But what is not surprising in Isaiah 45 becomes unbelievably shocking in Philippians 2. Like Isaiah, Paul is celebrating the anointed of the Lord, Christ Jesus himself. Whereas Cyrus did not know the Lord, Jesus does, and his humility and obedience is the model for our own. Jesus humbled himself, and his obedience extended all the way to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6–9).

And then the turn. Because of his humility and his obedience, God has highly exalted him. He has given him the supreme name in the cosmos. And what does this exaltation and name-giving mean? It means that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

“Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself.”

Paul knows what he is doing. He knows that this fundamental Christian confession — Jesus Christ is Lord — does not merely declare him to be a human ruler like Herod or Caesar. He knows that he is echoing the words of Isaiah in that great monotheistic chapter. The chapter that rang with “there is no other god” is now shockingly, surprisingly, incredibly redeployed to declare that Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself, come in the flesh to rescue and redeem, to suffer and to save.

Yes, Paul knows what he is doing. And he knows that he’s not the first to do so.

Jesus Is Lord

The shepherds heard it first, declared by angel tongues on the night of Jesus’s birth. The good news of great joy for all people shockingly brought together Isaiah’s words in a simple sentence. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Not merely the Lord’s Christ (like David or even Cyrus). This Christ is the Lord himself, now laying aside his divine privileges and emptying himself, humbling himself, taking on the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of men.

Now when the ends of the earth turn to be saved, they don’t merely turn to the Creator God. They turn to the God-man from Nazareth, the boy from Bethlehem. Jesus is Lord, and there is no other. Jesus is Yahweh!

Pastor Dale