The Hard Questions

"...the difficult questions we would ask of God will only be answered when we are willing to give significant time and energy to seeking God's face. A quick prayer of "Why God, why?! and then return to business as usual will not suffice. Instead, God invites us to come into his presence for extended conversations, during which God imparts himself and his perspective to us. No question is too hard for God, no feeling hidden from him - but God can only deal with those things we openly bring before him for his healing and help.
Humility with regard to the limitations of human understanding where God is concerned is necessary. More to the point, it is ultimately not understanding, but presence - the companionship and love of God - that we need most in our deep questioning." Commentary on 2 Esdras, pages 1434-1436, The Renovare Bible .

Then I answered and said, "How long? When will these things be? Why are our years few and evil? He answered me and said, "Do not be in a greater hurry than the Most High. You, indeed, are in a hurry for yourself, but the Highest is in a hurry on behalf of many. (The Apocryphal Writings, 2 Esdras 4:33-34).

From me: God is not threatened when we ask the hard questions but he is glorified when we trust him. If you have never doubted, questioned, or stopped in your tracks for lack of clear directions, it's  because you only came to Christ 10 seconds ago. But remember,  He who called us to serve him is faithful. Today challenge yourself to reciprocate, and be faithful to Him even if the answers you think you must have never comes in this lifetime.

Waiting in perfect trust ...

Lauren

To You Health!

On January 5th my daughter Lauren Lo Myers sent me the end of year “Windfall” challenge which I promptly posted on my FB page. I was surprised to see how many people took us up on that and are now saving dollar amounts corresponding to the week number of January 2013 (hope you deposited your three dollars). Let’s not be too legalistic with this though. How about finding ways to set aside more than we “have to?”
Here’s what I mean. We want to walk in health, we pray for healing while clinging to habits that are proven to be death to us. Sodas, excessive caffeine, cookies, chocolate (hurts me to say that), cigarettes – you get the idea. Then there are legitimate expenses we may not be managing as well as we could. By that I mean spending $150 for groceries then buying lunch and breakfast every day at work. What’s wrong with that picture? Pack your lunch while you are making dinner – from your dinner.  Buy enough fruits, cereals, yogurt, whatever you eat for breakfast, and take your stuff with you. It will work out so much cheaper. Next step? Add some extra cash to your stash!
 Skip the soda or drink half as many cans as you used to.  I f you can’t give up sodas cold turkey buy your brand when you food shop instead of a can from the cafeteria at a $1 to $1.75 each time.  Listen, Starbucks has heavens know how much money. How many days a week you want to buy that $4-6 dollars worth of dressed up coffee? Think what a difference it could make to your fund 11 months and some weeks from now!
For sure God blesses us when we tithe and put him first in all aspects of life. One of those blessings we receive is wisdom. God says my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.  Let’s be wise this year not just for our health and finances but as a witness to the world.

Have a wonderful week!

Do You? Seriously?

Jeremiah 29:11 is arguably one of the most widely quoted verses in today's Christian repertoire. Yet, most of us panic the moment the reins are yanked from our protesting grasp and we find ourselves going at high speed to who knows where. But that's the whole point. God has the plan and therefore the path; we are not out of control, or adrift, at lose ends, or any of those wonderfully descriptive ways we express being completely lost.

As we barely clear the first few hurdles of 2013 we may still be looking backwards asking, "what just happened?" The goals of 2012 never quite made it from the starting block or halfway down the track, tripped and fell to rise no more. To make matters worse everything around us, so far, only suggests more of the same. Hold up!!! God has a plan that involves hope and a future. He may not be sharing details with you at the moment but do you trust him?

Here's something very old, very "King James" but worth our time and attention.

Lead Kindly Light Hymn

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

New Year Greetings and Sharing from Guideposts

A Hunger of the Soul He was a reporter. Objective. Detached. But this was one story he couldn't let go of. By Roger Thurow, Chicago, IL

Let me tell you about an African woman named Leonida Wanyama. For Christmas dinner her family had boiled bananas. That’s all there was. In the hills of western Kenya, Christmas comes during the dry season when fall harvests are often already depleted. Farm families live on tiny portions of corn, tea, bananas, sweet potatoes, beans and a few vegetables. Babies cry with hunger. Children’s eyes dull with exhaustion. It happens every year. Here, as in so many parts of Africa, farmers, the women and men who grow the food, go hungry. Except that this year Leonida Wanyama vowed that things would be different. A neighboring farmer had told her that an American organization called One Acre Fund was looking for farmers willing to try something new. If the farmers agreed, One Acre Fund would supply them with hardy seeds, a bit of fertilizer, credit to pay for it and classes teaching modern farming methods. “They promise you will grow more than you have ever grown,” the farmer told Leonida. Leonida is a woman of faith. She leads the choir at her village church. She prayed about the farmer’s offer Feeding Africa and studied her Bible. She came to this passage in Exodus: “I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Was this offer from One Acre Fund God’s deliverance from a lifetime of hunger? Leonida didn’t know. She decided to trust anyway. I met Leonida for a very simple reason. My life, too, was changed by a verse from Scripture. Though in my case the verse was from Matthew: “For I was hungry and you gave me food.” Those words gripped me the moment I read them. I’m not sure why.

I grew up in a place vastly different from Lutacho, Kenya. I was raised in Crystal Lake, Illinois, outside Chicago—the heartland, where modern farming methods have produced harvests that are the envy of the world. Teachers at my Lutheran grade school made us memorize Bible verses. That verse from Matthew planted itself in my heart like a seed. For a long time the seed lay dormant. I became a journalist, traveling the world covering stories. In 2003 I landed in Ethiopia to report on a famine for The Wall Street Journal. I walked into an emergency medical tent filled with severely malnourished children. A farmer was there with his five-year-old son. Just one year earlier the farmer had carried surplus sacks of grain to sell at market. Now he carried his starving son to this feeding tent. His son weighed 27 pounds. I stared into the boy’s eyes. Emptiness stared back at me. For I was hungry.... I left that tent struggling to understand how such misery could exist in the twenty-first century, in a world bursting with food. How could a farmer, a person who brought food out of the ground...be hungry? For the complete article, go to Guideposts