Acquaintances

The following section from my Book concludes on some of the hardships that I have endured over the last five years. Get the book and read about how these trials emerged into the eye opening lesson of how God used difficulties in my life to help others I didn't even know and see how it helped me gain peace. It can work in your own life as well.

 

From my new book Pursuing Peace - Finding God's Peace in a Stressful Life

“Aside from the impact we can have on people, God uses our money to touch the lives of those around us. Through this journey, I have spent the money I have earned at my job so that many other people— doctors, nurses, office managers, pharmacy techs, little orange bottle manufacturers, paper bag manufacturers, toll booth operators, parking lot workers, and janitors—can make money at theirs. My money has helped make the lives of other people around me better, including acquaintances and people I have never met. It is the system we live in.

 

I bought a new truck, and I was proud of the fact that it was a quality vehicle. And then the air-conditioning went out. If you have ever been without air-conditioning in Houston in the summer, then you can appreciate this. Even though my warranty covered the air-conditioning, I still made about five trips to the dealer, drove extra miles, and spent extra money. But I met people along the way. I was nice to people who dealt with annoying people on a daily basis. I thanked people for their help. God allowed me to experience the burden and spend my hard-earned money to support the rest of those around me who were also made in His image. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them” (Rom. 8:28 NLT).

 

We need to always remember that life will change on us. We will endure trials, experience seasons in our relationships and our experiences, and gain and lose things. But the way we choose to look at these things will determine the level of peace that we will have in our lives. God uses situations to grow us spiritually. And when we rest in Him with the knowledge that He is in control and works everything for our good, then we can be at peace. Then we can give ourselves over to be used by Him for a great good in the lives of those around us.”

Chapter 3 - Family, Friends, and Acquaintances

 

 

Beauty from ashes

The last few days in America have been a whirlwind of events. They were filled with fear, anxiety, hurt, anger, restlessness, death, mourning and ultimately resolve, courageousness and even happiness. But the sting of these former things are still in play. Because of the acts of evil men, there is still hurt, still pain and still questions. The results of these acts are that there are those who will take time to heal; some physically and many emotionally. These acts are at their very core - of evil, for they in themself have torn the veil between life and death for some living, breathing and beautiful Americans. But know this - God still makes good things from the evil deeds of mankind.

My wife’s grandparents were born in Poland in the years preceding some incredibly evil years in our history. Her grandfather ultimately lived into his 90’s and died but a short drive from Boston and Watertown.  But as he took his last breath and went to be with his God, his back still bore the scars of the evil he saw firsthand in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Flossenbürg. The stories of his trials there and the sorrows of separated family still resonate with us even today. When I think of them, I can faintly hear the rumble of my father-in-law’s hungry tummy. I can see him sit as a child beside his mother in a refugee camp in Germany - not knowing if he would ever see his daddy again. And I can hear the quiet song that his mother surely sang to him to quiet his fears.

These are the results of the decisions of evil men. They bring hurt and pain and sometimes even death. But God sees and orchestrates good even from the deeds of evil people. These brave Polish souls stood strong in the face of evil. And they clung to the God they knew had ultimate control over evil. As the days, weeks, years and decades went by, God began doing what He does best. He began to take the pieces and weave them into a new garment.

Some six decades later, that same Polish prisoner sat at a table in San Antonio, Texas - a table placed for the elite. As the wedding photographer’s video camera panned to him, he looked at the joy around him and at his granddaughter, her vibrant figure dressed in white, and spoke the words we still have on film thirteen years later – “I love him and her.” A man crushed but not destroyed, who endured the pain and sorrows of evil men and saw the joy of God’s handiwork as the Great Artisan.

“I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.”  Ecclesiastes 3:10-15 NLT

Evil has existed since the dawn of our time. Each of us struggles with it in some way. And some of us are even driven by it; driven to do the worst of acts. This same evil will not stop until the final day when God say “enough!” Until that day, we each have but one short life to live. Whatever evil is enacted upon us in these days cannot get around the vantage point of God. His work is to create beauty from the ashes. “…he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning…” Isaiah 61:3 NLT)

 “We must wait with patience for the full discovery of that which to us seems intricate and perplexed, acknowledging that we cannot find out the work that God makes from the beginning to the end, and therefore must judge nothing before the time.” Matthew Henry

“…but we must wait till the veil be rent, and not arraign God’s proceedings nor pretend to pass judgment on them.” Matthew Henry

The word “fear” in verse fourteen of Ecc 3 is more about “awe.” The Hebrew “yara” means – “to stand in awe of, reverence, honour, respect, to cause astonishment and awe, to inspire reverence or godly fear.” In all that transpires in this life, God wants us to revere Him as the caretaker of all things and all events. He wants us to recognize that, through good or bad events, He is the only One who can see every facet of life – past, present and future. He made time and He can shape it. Therefore, no bad aspect of this life can stand without being shaped into good by God. His eternal plan is for good. So He shapes even the evil of this life into good. For that godly intent, and in His capacity as the Almighty, we should stand in awe before Him in great respect. We should trust that He is working things all out for our good.

In the meantime, let us enjoy the good in life. Let us eat, drink, love and care for those who God has allowed to walk beside us. Hold tight to the good and trust Him with the bad. He is in control. And one day He will command the sound of the trumpet, evil will meet its end, the good of God will reign forever and we with Him in the glory of His presence! Amen.

He will lift us up

"How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me."

Psalm 13: 1-6 NIV

The tragedy today in Boston is yet another example of the evil in this world. Our enemy, be it those fellow humans who seek to destroy us, or the army of Satan itself, it seeks to destroy us. They do indeed rejoice when we fall. It breaks my heart to see the footage of those who fell today. It throbs at the thought of those who were within the circle of smoke; those who were not seen in the footage. And to those who were not there but were waiting for their loved ones to return home from the race.

Our enemies have indeed rejoiced. But we trust in the unfailing love of the Father. In Him, we have our salvation. He oversees these acts of evil. And we trust in Him to work this evil into good for all of those affected. May His gracious favor be upon them and upon us as we mourn for them – our fellow Americans. And may the justice of the Almighty ensue swiftly.

 

 

Snippets of Peace

 

From my new book Pursuing Peace - Finding God's Peace in a Stressful Life

 

 “This is where readers find that the author has taken a bad

situation and magically turned it shining in a few orchestrated

words, all to prove a point. Well, this is real life after all. And

sometimes God’s finale for proving a point ends differently.

That meager moment of mine didn’t end simply with the huge

blue moon and the sound of children’s laughter. It ended when

I recognized the message. He was giving me peace with the

pain of feet covered in fire ants.” 

CH2 - Made in His Image

 

 

“How often we go through life and swing from moments of

bliss to junctures of distress. It is as if we hang from a tree on a

hard, wooden board and sway our way through life. At times,

we may feel like we’re just swinging from one bad experience

to the next. We should be reminded of the family in our life

and the experiences we share. Use them all. The times of joy

remind us that God’s gifts of peace bring comfort. The bad ones

remind us that this life is groaning around us in anticipation of

the return of God’s perfect order and majesty. And in due time,

we shall prevail. Take heart in the hurt.”

CH3 - Family, Friends, and Acquaintances

 

 

“Grown endurance results in winning. The Olympics have

filled the news over the past few weeks. It’s that time when the

world comes together to compete for the prize. We are in a life

of spiritual Olympics. We are in training every day. Some of

us work smart, and we toil hard. Some of us just show up and

hang out on the sidelines. Unlike the sports Olympics, in the

spiritual Olympics, we all try out, and we all qualify to race.

But we don’t all win. When we feel the heat and run with

God, we develop endurance. Our gained strength results in a

successful finish.

 Descriptions of life packed with pressure fill the Bible. Yet

Christ Himself managed to take on the greatest pressure of all

when He died on the cross. He was able to do that with the

peace He had within Him. This is the same peace where we can

find calm within when we go through our own battles in life.

The process is hard, but the pursuit is simple, and the results

are amazing. And it starts with us dedicating the battle to the

Lord and resting in His promises.”

CH4 -  Decision Making

 

eBook 

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Paperback 

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Hardcover

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I Can See Clearly Now – the Log is Gone

Have you ever had a stye in your eye? Well I had not – until this week. I have no clue what brought it on. I just woke up the other morning and felt like my wife had punched me in the eye in the middle of the night. And with the irritation came what felt like a sinus headache without the sinus congestion. Weird, but painful. I must admit, the mental distraction that this little bump of pain gave me made me ask the question, “Lord, why do you let people get styes in their eyes? What good could come from it?”

This trivial situation reminded me of a passage in Luke. In the text, we see that Jesus took those who were following Him and went up into the mountain on the edge of Capernaum (Peter’s home town). He prayed all night. Now I have never been able to do this successfully. I have made it hours but never all night. The next morning, you would think that Jesus would be exhausted. I’m thinking an egg McMuffin and a long nap. But He gets right to business. He comes down with his followers and hand-picks his twelve disciples. Jesus may have actually been physically exhausted as a man but He was no doubt spiritually rejuvenated. In the midst of the twelve, and the multitude of people below who had come to hear Him speak, Jesus then turns to His twelve and begins to deliver his most famous sermon - “The Sermon on the Mount.”

New disciples, praying all night to prepare His speech - you would expect some powerful words to come from that. The KJV says “And He lifted up His eyes on His disciples.” If you were one of these novice disciples who had just seen this man cast out demons, heal leprosy, fill empty nets with fish to the point of bursting and stretch out the bones of a man’s withered hand, you might be ready to take notes on what He is about to say as His eyes gaze upon you. Less than thirty verses later, Jesus, looking at His chosen few, draws a powerful illustration. “Get the log out of your own eye so you can see clearly to get the speck out of your friend’s eye!” Ouch! If a little stye could do so much to distort my vision and mental clarity, I can only image what it would be like with a log in my eye. Could I see at all? Would the pain be so severe that I could not think clearly at all? Would I be in any position whatsoever to actually help someone else with anything? I think I would be absolutely useless.

Jesus was simply saying that we should be careful to not judge others for their mishaps and wrongdoings and for their sins and mistakes, because we’ve got our own problems. We sin against God in our own ways. And the Lord precedes this warning with things that we should do instead; be merciful, love your enemies, give to others - expecting nothing in return, turn the other cheek, bless those who despitefully use us. I guess this gives a whole new meaning to, “the meek shall inherit the earth.”

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” Luke 6:41-42 NLT