Tag Archives: Hope

Otis T. McMillan ~ Jesus Can Redefine Your Life Today

Jesus can redefine your normal

“On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.” (Luke 13:13)

In a moment, God can change your situation: how long you have been waiting does not matter to God.

A woman suffered 18 years with an infirmity. When Jesus saw her, he declared that she was set free from her infirmity. He then laid hands upon her, and she was totally made whole. It did not matter to the Lord how long she had suffered; she was immediately healed.

Jesus is not limited by the length of time you have been in your condition nor by the severity of the situation you face. He has the power to bring immediate deliverance. Once he puts his hand upon you, you will be set free.

Jesus can redefine your shame

“Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.'” (Luke 8:47-48)

She had a chronic illness that the doctors couldn’t figure out, one that made her unclean in others’ eyes. To get close enough to Jesus to see if he could heal her required her to risk additional shame and scorn. Her desperation overrode her pride, and in humility she grabbed at his robe. Jesus, concerned with her whole person, restored her and lifted her up as an example of faith and humility.

Today, you can pray, “Jesus, You know the places in my life where I feel hopeless and helpless. As I reach out to You, lift my eyes to Your face and restore me so that I can serve You in the company of my family and friends. In Your name I pray, amen.”

Jesus can redefine your storm

“And it shall turn to you for a testimony.” ( Luke 21:13, King James Version)

Your storm will result in your testimony: be assured God is in control.

Jesus, in his instructions to his disciples, informed them of the difficulties they would face. They would be many and challenging. In all that they would go through, they must remain confident knowing God remains in control of all. Their storm will result in their testimony.

While one is in a storm, it is understandable that fear and doubt attacks. Your key is staying focused on the fact that God is in control at all times. Regardless of how the enemy fights, the Lord has already planned your victory. Prepare yourself: you have a testimony coming.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Consolation and Desolation: Old Wisdom for Tired Protestants

Summer is a season for seeing people we normally don’t get to visit much: family reunions in park pavilions, vacation at a camp where we hug people we only see once a year, travel to relatives several states away.

The widespread family of faith isn’t really all that different, and sometimes when the flowering tree is in bloom and the breeze moves slowly under the weight of humidity, we bump into spiritual relatives we don’t see very often. They are strange and familiar at the same time, like an aunt you see every few years who wears different clothes than your mother or grandma but carries recognizable features, a familiar laugh, an identical profile.

Now that we’re historically removed from burning each other at the stake, for the past half-century Catholics and Protestants have been venturing into the park pavilion with nervous, eager smiles, carrying potato salad and ready to try an afternoon’s visit for brief family reunions – so to speak. No, we still don’t share the Eucharist, yes, most Protestants still have deep misgivings about the fine line of venerating Mary or asking Mary to intercede, and praying to Mary as Co-Redemptrix; and yes, many Catholics still have deep misgivings about Protestants’ tendency to swing back and forth theologically with every knee-jerk trend under the sun; but you don’t bring up famous family fights of holidays past at the one time of year everyone’s together for a few hours, and overall ecumenical efforts on the parts of Catholics and Protestants have been a very good thing indeed.

Which brings me to Ignatius on a site largely shaped by Wesleyan Methodist theology. Sometimes you bump into a distant relative and wonder how you’ve never connected before. Ignatius is that guy.

Assuming you have Google and Amazon, one can let you research a bit about him on your own time; today, large likelihood of being Protestant reader, we’ll briefly sketch an appreciative note on his concepts of consolation and desolation. Some wisdom is deep and hard and rich but at the same time feels like good old-fashioned common sense: this is that kind of wisdom.

It cuts against the #blessed trend, it cuts against cynical pessimism, and it cuts against the insidious assumption that anything we experience in our life must result from our own smarts or stupidity, holiness or hollowness. It is deeply personal without being damningly individualistic.

Simply put, “For Ignatius, the ebb and flow of consolation and desolation is the normal path of the Christian life.” There will be times of consolation – when there is a sense of noticeable, personally experienced growth or blossoming, when God’s presence seems close and the means of grace seem easy and quick at hand. There will also be times of desolation – similar to the “dark night of the soul” – when, whether from wrongdoing, or attacks of the enemy, or times of struggle or challenge, God’s presence seems distant or even simply absent, when our growth seems stalled or the habits that sustain us feel unusually heavy.

Ignatius counsels that in a time of consolation, followers of Christ should practice gratitude; resist self-satisfied pride, by remembering how limited we were during seasons of desolation; capitalize on the presence or abundance of energy available; and determine not to back out on the resolutions we’re making while things are going well, when later they do not. If Ignatius had been a midwestern farmer, consolation might be described in part as, “make hay while the sun shines.”

He also counsels that in a time of desolation, followers of Christ should practice the habit of recalling God’s faithfulness in prior times of desolation; resist the temptation to see suffering as pointless; resist desolation through meditation and prayer; avoid making big decisions, “because desolation is the time of the lie—it’s not the time for sober thinking. That is, in our disheartened state, we’re more prone to be deceived”; pay attention to the spiritual insights found during desolation; and confidently look for the quick return of a season of consolation. If Ignatius had been a leader in Great Britain in World War II, desolation might be described in part as, “We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

Yet Ignatius manages to avoid painting seasons of consolation and desolation as solely discerned by individualistic feelings, and gives wise counsel for how to discern when a choice, circumstance, or perspective moves us toward God and others, and when a choice, circumstance, or perspective is moving us away from God and others.

Overall, for Ignatius, Christians shouldn’t be surprised when desolation gives way to consolation, and we shouldn’t be surprised when consolation again gives way to a period of desolation; but, whether we perceive it or not at the time, God can use both to form and fashion our character and our loves, and the more prepared we are to encounter either season, the better we will endure the challenges that come with both abundance and affliction.

Do you know any tired American Protestants who might take heart from this old wisdom? It certainly has relevance for the constant question, “why do bad things happen to good people?” It has relevance for the “health and wealth” preachers. It has relevance for the “self-made man” portrayals. It has relevance for the depressive Goths tempted to believe that desolation is the season of truth, not the time of the lie. It has relevance for large church pastors who are too preoccupied with attendance, scale, and platform. It has relevance for the tired nun, the tired mom, the tired aunt. It has relevance for someone you know in your life who is going through something awful that you can’t understand.

Good things come to those who –

To those who what?

To those who wait.

“Wait,” Ignatius murmurs over a paper plate of fried chicken on a hot summer afternoon at the ecumenical family reunion. “Your time of consolation will give way – so store up now. Your time of desolation will resolve – so resist at every turn.”

(Good things come to family reunions, too.)

Sometimes, if you’re tired, finding an old relative (or a dead one) will give you some new perspective. Whether you’re in a season of consolation or desolation – thank God for Ignatius.

Shalom Liddick & Mike Liddick ~Extravagant Praise

“What does it mean to bless the name of the Lord? Whenever we recognize who God is, we are praising him. How will you live in extravagant praise this week? Whatever it is – God’s got it.”

Click “play” below to listen to a time of prayer and preaching on extravagant praise from the founding pastors Shalom and Mike Liddick of Resurrection Life Church, a new church plant in Marana, Arizona.

From the sermon “Extravagant Praise,” April 2019, Resurrection Life Church.

Michelle Bauer ~ When You Need the Strength to Stand

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. – Deuteronomy 6:5

So many times we hear this familiar verse as a command – something to be obeyed. But what if we heard it as an invitation?  God, who loves you with all of his heart, soul and strength, is inviting you to love him back. That changes everything!

On some days and in some seasons of our lives, standing is hard. Perhaps you are in one of those seasons now. Maybe you are supporting a friend or family member who is walking through a difficult season. Whatever your circumstances, be encouraged that God stands with you today and always.

God promises to never leave us, to provide refuge and to strengthen us. He also gives us his promise that he knows and cares about us.  Regardless of how it seems sometimes, God is not distant. He is near and working in your life to restore and guide.

May these promises provide the strength you need to stand firm in every season of life.

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.  Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:1-9

Three times the Lord challenges Joshua to be “strong and courageous.” God is giving Joshua a big job to do! He is tasked with leading “all these people” into hostile territory for a direct confrontation with their enemies.  “I will never leave you nor forsake you” must have given Joshua great comfort. What big job has the Lord given you to do? Ask God today to comfort you with the promise that he will never leave nor forsake you.

“The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Where will you go this week that you will be grateful to have God’s presence with you? What difference will it make to have God with you in that place or situation? When you are discouraged or terrified, how easy is it to make the choice to be strong and courageous? In what situations is it most difficult for you to be strong and courageous? Talk to God about the feelings or questions you may have about this challenge.

 What would it look like for you to be strong and courageous in the most difficult places of your life? Ask God to give you a reminder of his presence with you in those moments. Take a moment now to imagine him with you. What is God communicating to you through his words, posture, or proximity to you?

With God’s promise come a few reminders. We are to be obedient to his Word and careful to follow his instructions. How does his presence offer you the strength that obedience requires?

Is there a time in your life when you felt like God had abandoned you? Talk to God about that experience as honestly as you can. What question would you like to ask God about that time? How has that experience affected your ability to believe God’s promise?

Leave this time trusting that the Lord will never leave you.

Karen Bates ~ Egg Salad and Easter Sunday: Preaching the Messiness of Hope

Holy Week is a special time to reflect as Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection are commemorated.

I also get to remember how deeply loved I am, when I consider Jesus willingly suffering and dying on the cross for me. I love guiding people through the significance of Jesus’ journey to the cross and his resurrection.

Once during a ministers’ conference, the speaker said that on Easter, too much talk about the crucifixion and the events surrounding it is “a downer.” Talk about the good parts, we were told, because it gives people hope — focus on the resurrection. People are not coming back to the church to hear about the crucifixion, the speaker claimed.

But I wonder: Are there any bad parts to the story?

Talking about Jesus being denied by a friend, betrayed by a disciple, and turned on by a crowd is not bad. Isn’t it an opportunity to allow people to meet Jesus in his humanity and divinity? Jesus experienced the same messiness of life many of us are experiencing or will experience. But he knew his destiny; and though he could have walked away from the divine assignment, he didn’t.

Jesus had a choice and decided I was worth the torture and pain he was experiencing. He knew he was going to be resurrected. He knew the resurrection would be a bridge connecting me to his Father — our Father. When people understand the depth of love exhibited by this act, it draws them to the Savior.

Recently, while picking up coffee, I heard a store clerk shouting at a man in the aisle to bring the candy he was putting in his pocket to the counter to pay for it. He put the candy on the counter; however, the clerk did not see the sandwich and treat he was holding in his other hand. When she realized it, he was running out of the store. The clerk prepared to chase the man while the store owner called the police. A customer agreed to pay for the items if the owner would not call the police.

When the man realized no one was chasing him, he looked surprised and scurried up the street.

I wondered how hungry the man was to steal an egg salad sandwich from a convenience store. I also wondered how he would have reacted to the customer’s kindness.

He left without knowing his debt was paid. He was free to go. The food belonged to him.

That information probably would have surprised him. A stranger thought enough of his plight to free him from arrest (even though the man likely deserved the punishment for taking the items).

I thought about the spiritual implications, too. What the customer did for the man was what Jesus did for me. It made me sad because the man did not know he was free to go. I wondered how many people live with the burden and guilt of sin, but don’t know they are free to walk away from it.

Commemorating Jesus’ last week on earth reminds us of John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” That is why sharing all that happened to Jesus leading up to the crucifixion at calvary is important.

Life’s problems do not disappear. They didn’t disappear for Jesus. How Jesus handled problems was different. Inviting people to see the messiness of what happened to Jesus and how he handled it is something that gives us all hope — not just the Resurrection.  

Jesus loved Peter despite Peter denying him. Jesus washed Judas’ feet even though he knew he would betray him. He accepted the crowd’s praise, even though he knew they would demand he be crucified.

Jesus also knew the end of the story.

In Mark 8, after Peter said Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus talks about his death and resurrection. “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.”

Telling the whole story is a holy adventure that provides examples of ways to navigate through life’s challenges.

Reflecting on those challenges and the triumph over them is a fresh reminder of how Jesus’ love for others pushed him to endure torture so he could lay down his life for his friends. It is also an opportunity to tell somebody who doesn’t know about the beauty of Jesus’ love. They need to know that the cost of their sins, and the guilt and shame that accompany them, are covered.

People need to know what led to the morning when women, coming to slather fragrant oils on a decaying body, found the stone rolled away from an empty tomb. This is a time to remember why Easter is a celebration. It’s not just about the resurrection, but everything that surrounds it. 

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Terrible Precipice of Knowing: Black Holes, Enlightenment, and the Divine

There is a moment you stand on the brink, or the brink stands on you. The inexorable draw pulls you in, like gravity, like the current; at the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction – before you can say what it is you’ve seen.

“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”

In the quest to see the truth, what if you are blinded? Is a blind woman happy who has lost her sight in order to bear witness to the Beatific vision? Would terrorist Saul have chosen blindness and disorientation to see Christ, or did Christ need to blind Saul temporarily so that he would perceive properly?

Today is an odd moment in human history; scientists have collaborated across continents, in multiple time zones, to set up equipment on the world’s mountains so that humanity can use plastic, metal, and glass tools that fit in your pocket or sit on your desk to communicate with each other almost instantaneously and see images of a black hole. Computing isn’t identical to information and information isn’t identical to knowledge, but today you can pull out a piece of equipment, use a high-powered search engine, type the words, “black hole photo,” and see the results of decades of hard work. Just 150 years ago people learned of the death of their loved one in the U.S. Civil War by checking the newspaper or receiving a letter from the dead person’s friend. It could take weeks, months. Now a mystery in our galaxy is viewable on the rechargeable machine in your pocket.

Black holes are mesmerizing, terrifying, and little understood. Using math, calculations, formulas, equations, scientists guess. What appears to be true is that, in a way, light itself can be sucked down the drain and condensed into a tiny, heavy ball with extraordinary gravitational pull. (Note: this is an inaccurate description of a complex reality by someone who is not a scientist.) What science fiction writers like to play with is the moment – the event horizon – in which light or matter (or a fictional character) can no longer escape the gravitational pull.

You still have time you still have time you still have time it’s too late.

Who can rescue you from knowledge that will be your undoing? No rescue craft can hover at the event horizon, lowering a rope to you.

How can knowledge burn but set you free? There is a knowing that singes you to breaking point, then propels you forward.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

Light, we are told, cannot escape the power of a black hole.

Perhaps not.

Or at least, perhaps not for a long, long time, until that condensed matter explodes outward – propelling, igniting, cascading.

Jesus swallowed up the darkness that appeared to swallow him. The darkness came close; the darkness thought that Jesus Christ stood on the event horizon, and fell in.

On this mountain he will destroy
    the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
     he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears
    from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
    from all the earth.
The Lord has spoken. – Isaiah 25:7-8

What is Holy Week about? It is about Jesus letting himself be drawn into a black hole. It is about the sky going dark, the earth shaking. It is about hours of eerie silence – hours and hours. It is about hope vanishing in the blink of an eye.

It is about a black hole quivering. It is about a black hole beginning to get smaller. It is about the Light of the World swallowing the heavy darkness with such inescapable draw that the darkness cannot escape. It is about the Light of the World entering a hole of black darkness and absorbing it from the inside.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Standing on the brink, looking into the abyss, Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate stood.

The inexorable draw pulls you in, like gravity, like the current; at the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction – before you can say what it is you’ve seen.

What does it feel like to betray the Light? Judas held that knowledge. So too did Pilate. And it swallowed them whole as they were consumed by the ever-hungry darkness.

Standing on the brink, looking into the abyss, Mary the mother of James, Joanna, Mary Magdalene, and other women stood, peering into an open, empty, echoing tomb. Comprehension failed them. Lightning-colored beings shouted nearby from an eternity away. Fight or flight kicked in. Hope is deadly, and they did not want to die.

At the moment you must fight to get away or be drawn in forever, you are the most tempted to pause with quickened breath as you weigh whether the knowledge of what lies on the other side is worth the possibility of your own extinction.

Had Light escaped the darkness?

What does it feel like to witness the Light? Mary and Joanna held that knowledge. So too did Magdalene. And it swallowed them whole as they were consumed by the ever-lifegiving Light.

It is not the brink that is the problem; it is not the cliff’s edge, the event horizon; it’s whether you’re jumping into darkness or into Light. Holy Week brings us to the brink, reminds us of what it feels like to peer over the edge into humanity’s bent toward self-destruction, pushes us toward letting go of all safety railings as we free-fall into the Light of the World.

Featured image courtesy Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/National Science Foundation.

Edgar Bazan ~ Relaunch

In the past, I’ve talked about reset as the ability to embrace and move into the new things that God has for us by not allowing the hurts of the past to hold us back. We can’t change the facts of the past, but we can change how we feel about them and how we allow them to affect us today. It’s possible to reframe our past experiences into a story of redemption by looking at them and talking about them through the lens of Jesus’ love and grace.

The outcome is that, as we experience redemption, we are able to move into the new life God has for us; we stop keeping our future a hostage to our past. We free our future by allowing God to redeem our past and reframe our whole lives around a new story of hope, redemption, and new life.

Today, I want to talk about our future. When I use the word “relaunch,” I mean the action, the opportunity, or the decision to try again that which has not been going well.

Our text comes from Isaiah 43:18, 19:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

The context of Isaiah’s writing to the people of Israel takes place at a bleak period in Israel’s history. They were in captivity, conquered by the Assyrians who had become the dominating military and political power of the region. They had lost everything they thought they would keep forever, and they were homesick for the land and the blessing God had promised them.

This happened because they were suffering the consequences of wrong choices against each other and God. Israel had abandoned everything they once represented as God’s people; they had become selfish and unjust. They had missed the mark of their mission and calling as people of God. They had forgotten time and time again that the blessing given to their father Abraham and their mother Sarah was meant to be stretched out to all the families of the earth and that this was the reason for their existence, their purpose and goal as people of God. They failed because they forgot who they were meant to be. Instead of pursuing their purpose, they settled with ephemeral comforts and tried to become like everyone else.

No doubt Israel was discouraged because they thought this was the end of them. They were stuck – emotionally, mentally, and spiritually – in their past, unable to see the new life and opportunities that God was opening up. God was speaking hope and encouragement to them in the midst of their darkest times.

God wanted them to know that even though they were suffering, they were not forsaken. God wanted the people of Israel to understand that the hardship they were experiencing would not be the end of them. God wanted to give them a fresh start, a new beginning in their life, a relaunch, so to speak. By telling them, “forget the former things,” God was saying, “it is time to move on.”

Maybe that is where we are! We may feel we are stuck, that we have failed people we love – including God – so many times that we are just getting what we deserve. If God dealt with us based on what we deserve, we wouldn’t be here. No, God deals with us with grace, to bring out the best of us and make us whole again.

God is not in the business of annihilation, but of redemption. Our God does not dwell in the past, for he is always doing a new thing. Don’t ever believe that God doesn’t want anything to do with you. If you think that you have no future, I have good news for you. God is saying, “it’s not over, I have plans for your life. I am about to do something new for you,” because God is always on the move, and he is always calling us forward.

Today, I am saying this so you can not only believe it, but so that you can also fully embrace a new life.

How can we embrace this new thing that God wants to do in our lives?

We begin by realizing that our God is forward thinking. Consider: the moment things went wrong at the beginning with Adam and Eve and their sin, God introduced a plan of salvation. Every time people got it wrong and messed up God’s work, God would continue to keep his plan unfolding. When Jesus called the disciples, and everyone else for that matter, he did it so they would follow a new path, a new way of living. He called them forward. So it is with us!

This tells us that God is far more interested in our future than in our past, that we are not a final product, and that God wants to do something new in us every day regardless of what has been. Some people think that all God wants to do is remind them of the things they have done wrong. God is more interested in your future than in your past. God is always working a future for us.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Back to the Future. In this movie, when Marty goes back to the past, he stands out. He knows things and has seen things and acts differently because he is from the future. In the first film, there are some scenes where he is thought of as weird for making peculiar decisions because his peers don’t understand where he is coming from.

In the same way, we can view all of us, Jesus’ followers, as people of the future. Let me explain. If you jump back 2,000 years to when Jesus was walking the earth, a majority of the Jewish people believed in the resurrection of the dead. They believed that at the end of time, when God set the world right, the righteous would be resurrected and vindicated. The twist is that Jesus accomplished that in the middle of the history, not at the end. God did for Jesus in the present what Jewish people thought he would do for all at the end. So, in the resurrection, it’s like Jesus became a person of the future.

In the same way, everything else Jesus has done for us – how he brought a new world, a new way of living – is about bringing the promises of the future into the present. With this, God calls us to live as our future selves right here in the present, to step into what God says is true about us, and to stand out.

We don’t have to wait for our best life to happen someday; it can begin to happen right now if we step into it. Most of the things that get in the way are our choices. I know you are thinking, easier said than done. And you are right.

How do we relaunch our lives to embrace the new thing that God wants to do in our lives? Let’s look again at the story of Israel and the challenge they had.

The problem that this story presents may help us to understand why we too struggle to embrace new life today: they forgot who they were meant to be. They lost their way. They allowed things to get in the way that disrupted their purpose and sent them onto a path God did not intend for them.

The miracle in the middle of this story and all of our stories is that God never gives up on us. God is always working to give us a future. God is always invested in our healing, redemption, and restoration so we can get back on track.

This is not just about wanting to save us but wanting to give us a good, abundant life that accomplishes the desires of God’s heart and our hearts. God has written in our hearts his goodness and creativity, all the best he wants for us.  

What is your heart telling you today? What are the things that have gotten in your way, in your marriage, your family? What are the thoughts, the dreams, the desires of your heart that have been lost or forgotten over time?

Many of us have learned to have our faith in God –and that is a beautiful gift. Our faith in God grounds us in the hope for tomorrow. But let me add something else that has do with the voice of our heart: our faith in God does not mean we must doubt ourselves. Our faith in God ought to lead us to trust ourselves too. Our faith in God leads us to know not only how much we are loved but also why we were created.

Here is where many of us struggle. Do we know how much we are worth? Do we know how large our life is meant to be? Let me tell you something. Self-doubt forces us into lives that are too small for our dreams. We settle too soon. For the most part, our lives are about safely conforming to what has been, rather than building up new and wild dreams. And we doubt ourselves because we focus on our weaknesses, on our mistakes, on what people think and say about us, rather than on the beautiful ways we were created and gifted by God.

To this God says: “Forget the former things!” My friends, this word today is God telling us, “remember who you are, who you are meant to be. I am always with you.” God knows that when we live in doubt and undervalue ourselves, we give up on what we are meant to be, on any pursuit of our heart’s dreams. But we are the only creation in the universe that was created after God’s own image. Are we to reject that? No, we need to embrace it because by doing so we honor and glorify God.

Today, God is telling us to stop doubting ourselves and to find our strength and purpose. I believe that God placed dreams in our heart as the fuel to move and encourage us to live forward, and that God is overjoyed when we pursue those desires.

Can you hear God’s voice in your heart? What is God saying? How is God encouraging you right now? What dreams have been placed in your heart?

Often, when we pray over and over again for the same thing, it is not because God is failing to give us an answer, but because we have not heard the answer we want. What if this year we go with what we have already been told, with what is in our hearts, as scary and challenging as it may be?

I finish with this. To relaunch is not to keep things the way they are but to endeavor into new things. When God says “I am making a new thing,” that new thing is for you… you are not forgotten. What we think is the end is actually the beginning of the next chapter. It is time to move on to what’s next. You can only grow if you allow a new chapter to be written in your life. To relaunch is not about replaying the same old song but learning a new one.

If we welcome God’s love and grace in our lives; if we have faith in the future he has promised us; if we know that God is for us and not against us, then no matter what situations we face, we will be able to engage with them in a positive way, because we know that we have life ahead of us, and that whatever the former things were, they have no claim over us anymore: we have moved on from them.

I invite you to look for the courage to act on the dreams God has placed in your heart, on what you are meant to be. Maybe you are like a bird who for a long time has had thoughts of flying but is in a cage. Here, the door is open. God created us to spread our wings toward the bright sky he created for us to enjoy. May your choices reflect your hopes for the future and not the fears of your past. Live tomorrow today. Amen.

Edgar Bazan ~ A Hard Reset

What do you do when a phone freezes, stops working, or is unresponsive? You toss it to the ground, step on it really hard, and make sure is completely crashed, right?

Well, probably not. Most likely you do what most of us have done: we reset our phones to reactivate its functions, we don’t discard it. Depending on how bad it is, we may remove the battery, or do a hard reset which restores the factory functions, deleting everything in the hard drive. It’s not a good situation, but you get your phone back and start all over again.

Have you thought about your life along those lines? That sometimes we need some kind of reset when life gets so thick and unbearable that we stop functioning in healthy ways and find ourselves thinking, behaving, or making choices that are not good for us or the people we care about? In such times, what we need is a fresh start. I know I do sometimes for a variety of reasons, and maybe you do too.

Why bring this up? Maybe you have a bunch of stuff going on in your life right now that keeps getting in your way and keeps you from fulfilling what you know is God’s plan and calling for your life. You may have regrets, remorse, or guilt, the sadness of unmet goals and past disappointments that distracts you from seeing a future for your life to the point that you give up hope, saying: I am broken, I will never be whole again, there is no future for me, I gave that up long ago. These experiences and memories from the past threaten to overpower us to the point that what happened in the past is ruining our present and our future.

The sad part of it is that we think it’s normal, that we just have to deal with it. In a way, we do have to deal with the not-so-positive happenings in life. But here is the trick: we are not called to do this alone.

God wants to work his good will in everything that happens in our lives, and God is in the business of making things new, in transforming the old into a new creation. Our God is a God of opportunities and new beginnings. Our God is a God of the ultimate Reset.

Do you need a reset today, a new way of living, of moving from what was to what can be? If you feel purposeless, broken, or like a frozen, unresponsive phone, then it is time for a reset, and you are not alone.

Now how do we do this? Well, let’s learn together.

The scripture for today is 2 Corinthians 5:17. It is just one verse. And it says,

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

Let’s get some context first.

Like us, the Corinthians were struggling with many problems and difficulties. One of them was living into their new identity as followers of Jesus. As new believers in Christ, they were becoming a part of a new way of living that was in drastic contrast to their old ways. The Corinthian Christians needed to be reminded of this and encouraged constantly about their faith, to not give up and give in to the old ways of living before they knew Christ.

For this reason, in this text and within the context of the letters to the Corinthians, Paul talks of a “new creation” as the transformation that takes place in us that makes us to be “born again,” meaning, saved from the condemnation of sin and death, and the evil powers of this world, to become people of God: children of light with a restored and new life.

However, there is always conflict when you have two elements at odds, in this case the old versus the new. There is a sort of battle between these opposing elements. The moment we embark on our new life, the old yells back at us, reminding us who we were, what we did, or what happened to us, with the only intention of holding us back by discouraging us and putting in doubt our worthiness.

For this reason, a common struggle Christians face today as much as back then is to fully leave behind the old and fully embrace the new. Although your soul has been saved, maybe your mind has not caught up: a part of you is still stuck in the past, in the old, in the very thing about which God has said: “you are the one talking about it, I don’t even remember that anymore!” In other words, what happens in practice is that the devil will always bring up your past to discourage you, but God will always remind you of your future to encourage you to keep moving on.

So when I talk about a reset in this context, I mean the ability to embrace and move into the new things that God has for us by not allowing the hurts of the past to hold us back. Becoming new creatures, as Paul says, is the ultimate reset for anyone, “for everything old has passed away and everything has become new!”

But this is one of the most difficult practices, isn’t it? How do we move away from the old? Is it possible?

I think it is, but we have to change it. What do I mean by “change it”? Like changing the past? Yes, like changing the past.

At first this sounds like a contradiction. How can we change something that already happened? But why does the past matter at all? What is the past to us today? What do we get to keep from something that already happened? Why does the past have so much power over us?

Well, because of the memories; we get to keep those –either the bliss or the trauma.

When we talk about the past, it is really the memory that we are talking about. The story that runs on a loop in the back of our minds of what has happened. This is critical because the past – those memories – only exists in our mind; but they have a direct effect on what happens today and will happen to us in the future. Why?

Because they define us. Although those events may not even matter anymore, they have so much power and control over our minds that they affect our decisions.

Recently I learned about epigenetics, the science that tells us that we are the sum of our experiences, that what happens to us – mentally, physically, emotionally – affects our biological composition, which means that everything that happens to us lays itself like tire tracks tattooing itself across our body-mind and literally making us the product of what has come before.

For example, an experience of trauma from the past seen through a certain lens can physiologically create stress responses like cortisol, stress hormones, and anxiety. All these responses may exist today –even if the event took place many years ago. According to epigenetics, we are the product of what we were and what we continue to allow to affect us today. That is why it is so hard to let the old go. Because it is tattooed all over our lives and we think that that is normal. And the more we replay it in our minds, the more it takes over us, printing itself all over our lives, defining who we think we are.

This idea led me to ask the question, “can we change what has already been, meaning our past experiences? Can we remove those unhealthy marks out of our lives?”

I think we can.

Here is something amazing: our cognitive framing, our interpretation of reality, our use of thoughts, memory and language to frame our past experiences, even how we speak about them, can actually allow us to change our very past experiences. The story we tell, the story we choose to tell about what has happened, can change what has happened insofar as it may change how we respond to those very experiences today.

Of course, we can’t change the facts of the past; but we can change how we feel about the facts and how we allow them to affect us today. So, if the past can affect you negatively today, perhaps you can change the past positively by changing your response to those negative past experiences by reframing them and seeing them through a different lens.

While we can’t ignore the past – it happened – we can reframe it into a story of redemption by looking at it, by talking about it, by thinking about it through the lens of Jesus’ love and grace. We change our past by allowing it to be redeemed.

This is the reset we need! We stop keeping our future a hostage to our past. We free our future by allowing God to redeem our past and reframe our whole lives around a new story with the hope we get through Jesus Christ. We don’t let our past get in the way of our future anymore. We break the cycle of oppression. We don’t choke on our fears and disappointments but rework these experiences through our faith in Christ. And in turn, we output all of our stories from the past into a story of redemption, knowing that we are more than we were because of what has happened to us today, because of our faith in Jesus the Christ.

I believe that there is a lot more for us in our lives that God wants to bless us with, but we don’t see it because we continue to allow an unredeemed past to dictate our future. And just like the Corinthians, we may find ourselves with a new faith but old thinking, old behaving, old brokenness marking us for life.

We can’t ignore the past. It is never going to go away, as long our memories of it exist. So, change it; redeem it; let the gospel of Jesus, the Word of God, bring healing into your past and transform it into a beautiful story of redemption. Don’t let it haunt you anymore. Look straight at those fears, unmet goals, disappointments, and hurts, and say: you are forgiven, you are redeemed.

I know this is not easy at all. The brokenness from the past holds us by making us feel as if what has been must always be. But here is the truth. We were never created to live defeated, guilty, condemned, ashamed lives defined by feeling unworthy. We were created to be the ultimate reflection of God’s self, full of light, life, and goodness. Let us stop building on brokenness and start building on hope, forgiveness, reconciliation, and acceptance. Let us allow our past to be transformed into a story of redemption, where our decisions of today reflect our hopes for the future and not our fears and brokenness from the past. Remember, new faith with old thinking does not work well. So let’s also stop acting on the brokenness of our past, and start living in the power of the new life Christ makes possible for us day after day.

Finally, let us be certain of this: what God is offering to all of us today is a wonderful thought: the best days of our lives haven’t happened yet. We are not here by accident. This is your confirmation. Everything is going to be alright. God is making a way for you right now. All you have to do is to welcome God’s Word into your life, so it can speak new life into your mind and soul, reframing your feelings, thoughts, and everything from your past that has been getting in your way for so long.

I invite you to frame your life, your whole self, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the love God has for you, in the grace that has been bestowed on you. That is our reset!

Be encouraged today: you are going to make it. Your life still lies ahead of you. You are becoming as you keep on living and walking the pathway Jesus sets before you. Go ahead. In the words of Toby Mac: “You’ve got a new story to write and it looks nothing like your past.”

Amen.

Karen Bates ~ Hope in a Diner Booth

At a time in my life when things were not like I wanted, I sat in a restaurant booth across from a friend as tears streamed down my face explaining how everything was going wrong.

The holidays were around the corner. I was short on cash. I was helping other people but no one asked me if I needed help. I needed to find a new place to live. I was pastoring a church and thought I was a failure. I was doing a Christmas concert and felt unprepared. I was a stressed-out, overwhelmed mess.

We had just left a service that was part of an Advent observance. Though I smiled through it, tears welled up in my eyes when the candle representing hope was lit. I didn’t let tears fall as Scripture passages were read and we sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel. But sitting across from my friend, I sobbed. For me, in a season where I was expected to celebrate Advent, I felt like doing no such thing.

My friend let me cry and then encouraged me to remember that my hope was not in my circumstances, but in my savior. My friend encouraged me to reread the Christmas story and to do things to be a blessing to other people.

For many people, this season can be a challenge. Life is hard. Things happen that catch people off guard. And it is never just one thing. It seems that difficult circumstances and situations come in waves that overwhelm.

For the first time in 20 years, a friend will celebrate Christmas without a spouse. It is not only the separation and impending divorce that rattled the friend. It was all the things that happened leading up to the separation and divorce request that has my friend in a place that seems hopeless.

And hope looks different for people. For the mother of an addicted child, hope is her child completing rehab, returning home and the family resuming its daily routines. For the child, hope is completing rehab and moving 2,000 miles away from the environment that cultivated and fed the addiction.

In this season, they are overwhelmed as they seek to find what hope looks like.

What circumstances or situations overwhelm you or someone you know? The breakup of a marriage? The death of a spouse or a loved one? The loss of a job? An addicted child? Aging parents? An undiagnosed illness? A terminal illness? An out-of-control child? An estranged relationship? A difficult job situation? Tense living conditions? Financial pressures from student loans, medical bills, or unexpected expenses? Car repairs? A crazy political climate? Difficulty find a job? Difficulty keeping a job? Mental illness? Depression? Oppression? Constant criticism? Unacknowledged achievements? Homelessness? Unemployment? Underemployment? Unmet expectations? Feeling like a failure? An unexpected transition? Family pressures? Chronic illness? Lack of health insurance? Injustices? An unjust situation?

Sometimes, people feel like they have no hope even after they have been successful because it doesn’t seem to be enough.You can fill in the blank for yourself about what overwhelms you or someone you know. For some people, it’s not just one thing, it a combination of things.

However, as we prepare our hearts to remember the birth of the Christ child and anticipate his impending return, know your hope is not in your circumstances, but indeed, in Christ, who is with you. The promise was made in Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (God with us).”

Word that the promise is being fulfilled comes as Jesus’ birth is announced in various New Testament Scriptures. One of my favorites is in Matthew 1 when Joseph is told he should still marry Mary even though she was pregnant, because the child is from the Holy Spirit. A fiancé pregnant with a child you didn’t father probably did dimmed the hope Joseph had for the future of his relationship with Mary. However, the hope for his relationship was likely restored after the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream telling him: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).”

In this season, if your hope is gone, waning or in short supply, my prayer is that as the candles on the Advent wreath are lit, it will reignite hope in your heart. I pray you are reminded God is with you. If your hope is gone, may the flame not only rekindle hope, but may it also remind you God loves you.

As his love surrounds you, I pray you feel the peace and joy celebrated in this season, even if you don’t feel like celebrating. Know this — God’s promises are true and God is with us. May the light of this season illuminate your way to restored hope in the resurrected Christ!