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    Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.     Ephesians 6:18  It’s amazing how much smarter and more loving than God we are. “We’re not smarter or more loving than God” you say. Well, we sure pray like we are. We pray like God isn’t paying attention or that He is out of touch with modern times or that He just doesn’t understand or care. We instruct Him on whom to cure, bless and save and, often, how specifically to do it. How egotistical we are. But, you say, we are told to pray and intercede. And so we are. But God doesn’t need our direction, He wants us to come to Him because He desires our fellowship and wants us to have His mind. He also wants us to bond with those for whom we pray. Nothing brings us closer to another than to intercede with the Creator for that person and nothing brings us closer to our God. As we share our love and concern for another with our God, He shares his love and perspective with us. We certainly don’t always learn the details of His plans,  but we get a […]

Though it tarries, wait for it . . . —Habakkuk 2:3   With God there is always more. He always seeks to pull us closer, to grow us. We may not always recognize the pull or the growth. There are surely dry times, but His pull is constant. Be patient, stay focused and wait on Him. He is always doing something whether we feel it or see it now.  Our knowledge of Him only inspires us to desire more of Him. The Christian walk yields no completion, this side of Heaven. As His children, we are blessed with a vision of what can be in Him. The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. . Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . .” ( Philippians 3:12  ). When we feel we have attained or arrived, we can be sure that our pride is lying to us. With eyes on Him, we can never doubt there is more and more is what we […]

“I have to lead my life in faith, without seeing Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 We walk in the low places among the ordinary things. We catch glimpses of God and His work, but our daily walk is not surrounded by glory and inspiration but  by grunts and perspiration. That’s what pleases Him. If each day His presence and work were absolutely clear, what place would faith have? He takes joy in our walk when we can’t see Him, when He seems far away, when our efforts seem fruitless and His burden does not seem light and yet we keep walking. The real joy is not in the rare spectacular work in which He allows us to take part, but in the daily struggle to love and be loveable. It’s all so much a matter of our focus and perspective. Last night we had a great men’s meeting. The highlight was the sharing by ordinary men of how an extraordinary God has touched and transformed their lives. In hearing their struggles, bravely shared, the listeners found common ground, and hope and blessing. By their sharing, the ordinary struggles of their lives made eternal spectacular difference in the lives of the rest of […]

1. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us.    2. How things appear is less a function of reality and more about our focus..    I realize that the last two sentences don’t seem to have much connection. My pattern in doing Nick’s Walk is to read the OC devotional the night before, summarize it in my mind and sleep on it. During the night, God usually gives me what He wants me to say. Sentence 1 is a summary of OC’s devotional. Sentence 2 is the clear thought I woke up with.  I think there is a connection. With God within us, how could there be anything but a spontaneous flow of love from us? How can we have a bad day? How can we become stuck in a rut? Do you remember being “in love?” Oh I know I have been “in love” with my wife for 40 years. But I’m talking about those days when love is new, when you wake up and go to sleep with the object of your affection as the only thing on your mind. What glorious […]

. . . it has not yet been revealed what we shall be . . . —1 John 3:2   My great-granddaughter is at that great age. She gets excited about the smallest adventure. “Want to go bye-bye?” “What to take a bath?” “What to go outside?” Any of these will produce an excited giggle, nod of the head and her taking off in the right direction. She was created perfect and hasn’t had much chance to mess that up. At some point as we age we seem to lose our love of adventure. We crave certainty and seek to avoid the uncertain.  You can begin to see this even in my little not quite 2-year-old. A touch of rebellion. A determination to do it her way. Little things that take her a few steps from the perfect path He intended. Already she finds comfort in the known and the familiar. As much as she still loves adventure, you can see the tendency toward a love of certainty. “Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life— gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.” I suppose this is part of our need to control. Control is what we […]

I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go —Jeremiah 45:5   Matthew 10: 29Are not two sparrows sold for a penny

Do you seek great things for yourself? —Jeremiah 45:5 We know what this guy wants. Our problem is that we are a bit confused about what we want.   Have you ever been in a relationship, perhaps for years and then you realize that you were in it just for what you got from the other person? Have you ever had the reverse situation? Have you heard yourself saying “He (She) doesn’t care about me? God knows what you feel. It happens to Him all the time. Most of us who claim a relationship with God, if we’re honest, would have to admit our relationship consists of wanting things from Him. Only the most immature relationship is measured by the gifts exchange. And we don’t want to get in a gift giving contest with God. What He really wants is to share Himself with us. He already knows us better than we know ourselves. He already possesses everything that is or has been or will be. Why don’t we want God but rather we look for gifts from Him? It’s because we don’t realize that He is everything we could ever need. The key to our relationship with Him […]

Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you —Genesis 22:2    I can’t always separate what I personally know about God from what I have been told. When we read about biblical characters hearing from God we often picture a face to face conversation between Creator and created and wish we had that kind of clarity when God communicates with us. But isn’t it likely that when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son that the word of God came to Abraham as it comes to us, in a still small voice. Would not Abraham have doubted that it was God who was speaking? What kind of God requires the death of a child?  Maybe it’s Satan talking to me, Abraham might have thought. This can’t be God.  Often we don’t hear clearly from God because we filter his messages through our traditional view of Him. We think, that can’t be God. God wouldn’t ask me to do that. God wants to personally reveal Himself to us. We have a guidebook in scripture. God does not change and what […]