The Companion

 "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze."

As a child, thunderstorms terrified me. I have vague memories of clinging to my mother as she went around our home shutting all the windows as a storm rolled into our area. My mother said much later that she thought the reason that was so was that while in my crib as a baby a heavy storm suddenly came upon us and my crib was located right below an open window. When she got to me, I had been soaked in the rainwater as well as fully exposed to the sound and fury of the storm. She felt that my fear as a child sprang from that experience.

Writer and speaker Alicia Britt Chole has a completely different memory of such storms. She said that as a small child, whenever a storm would approach, her father would take her onto their front porch and watch it approach together. The closer and more fierce it became, the more tightly and lovingly he would hold her. In that she learned two things. She learned not to fear the storm, and she learned how safe and secure she was in the loving arms of her father. She said, "In life, choosing who I'll spend the storm with makes all the difference."

I have no memory of my being in that crib, but I do know that at least for a few moments, I was alone in that storm. My mother rescued me, but in the time before, I was alone. I think, for me at least, that is what makes all the difference between how Chole looked at the storm and how I did.

Heavy storms will hit our lives. God makes it clear in Isaiah 42:3 that they will. The key is that we will not be alone when they do. If we are His, He will be with us. He will, as did Chole's father, hold us all the more tightly in the storm, protecting, comforting, keeping us safe and secure. Chole, in her own life storms,  would choose to not go through them alone. Whether she was aware of their approach, or they suddenly burst upon her, she would choose the company of her Lord and God. He would be her companion. For you and I, who will we choose to spend the storm with? In whose company will we choose to go through it? Chole has learned the power of intimacy with Christ. Have we?

Fear, anxiety, and a hundredfold other destructive emotions and thoughts cannot remain in His Presence. If we are living in His Presence, neither can they remain in us. Chloe learned to not fear the power of an earthly storm while held in the arms of her father. She later learned the same as she lived in the arms of her heavenly Father. May we join her there. He invites us to do so. Storms are coming upon us. For many of us, they're already here. Let us not only claim the promise of Isaiah 43:2, let us live it out. Let us live in deep safety of His loving arms.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Magoo Syndrome

 A popular cartoon character of the 1960's was a gentleman known as Mr Magoo.The running joke was that Magoo was extremely nearsighted, almost blind, but didn't know it. He would drive his old car, careening about and creating havoc wherever he went. He was rarely aware of this, but on those rare occasions that he was, he would blame it all on those who were affected by it. Driving down the wrong side of the highway, causing disaster everywhere, he would yell, "Roadhogs!" and continue on his way, oblivious to all the destruction he left behind. My question today is, "How much of Magoo is in you, and in me?"

Magoo's vision problems made him unaware of almost everyone else while remaining acutely focused on himself. Our spiritual vision problems do the same with us. When we lack the ability to see things as they really are, then everything becomes blurred, but we become so used to that the blurring seems normal to us, just as it did with Magoo. We're not blind, but we think everyone else is. They're roadhogs and they need to get out of our way. This is the life of the self-absorbed. They live traveling on the wrong side of the road, never realizing that the actual roadhog is....themselves. 

All of us, to some degree, are Mr. Magoo. All of us, to some degree, are roadhogs. The sin nature that we are born with makes it so. In 2 Peter 1, Peter writes about the spiritual fruit that will develop in a life given over to Christ. He lists the fruit as "self-control, patient endurance, godliness, love for other Christians, and love for everyone." In all of these we are to grow and we will grow as we live fully in Him. Peter then writes, "But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind...." Or, more to the point, they're Magoos. Card carrying, bona fide Magoos, creating havoc and chaos wherever they go. It's who they are. Is it who we are, in part or in whole?

I think in every aspect of the culture, and it's found its way into the church as well, we're seeing the effects of "The Magoo Syndrome," perhaps nowhere more than in the political spectrum. Our spiritual blindness has made Magoos of us all. 

One of the common endings of a Mr. Magoo cartoon was that after all the destruction and chaos that took place because of his blindness, the title character would exclaim with a note of triumph, "Oh Magoo, you've done it again!" May the Lord open the eyes of all of us who suffer from the Magoo Syndrome so that we may cease "doing it again" and always at such a cost. Open our eyes Lord that we may see. Not just others, but even more, ourselves.

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Hymn

 In my prayer journal today I came upon the lyric for the powerful hymn, Jesus Paid It All, by Elvina Hall. This is a hymn I have sung more times than I can remember. You may be able to say the same. I wonder, in all the churches, choirs, worship teams and people where it has been sung and by those who have sung it, just how real are those lyrics to us? To you, and to me?

I hear the Savior say, thy strength indeed is small; child of weakness watch and pray. Fine in Me thy all in all. Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin has left its crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Undeniably powerful words. How real are they in our daily experience?

I wrote the other day of A.W, Tozer saying that we use the language of power, but that our deeds are the deeds of weakness. I'm sure we don't see it that way. We feel like we're doing things with all our strength, and I'm sure we are. We just don't seem to grasp that all of our strength will never be enough to overcome the evil one and the fallen world we live in. In fact, we're so absorbed in taking on that world in our own strength that we can't even hear the words He speaks to us in the process. We don't want to admit that we're weak, so we never hear His voice telling us that we're too weak to prevail. So we wear ourselves out and never seem to really progress in our journey with Him. So the first thing needed in living out this hymn is to learn to hear His voice. Can we be still enough to do so?

If and when we hear His voice, almost always He will tell us to do nothing else but to "watch and pray." Yes, there will be a time to act, but we act only upon the direction He gives, and that direction comes as we are still before His Presence. Listening for His voice and His heart. As we listen, we also watch. When we do this, something miraculous and wonderful will take place. We discover in ways we never knew the infinite power and wonder of who He is. Something mystical happens. In the stillness He invited us to bring all that we to all that He is. He invites us, calls us, to bring all our ourself into all of Himself. It is then that we discover that He is our "all in all."

Why do so few of us seem to enter into this place? I think it's because we don't realize how sin has so completely permeated this world we live in. It has left its stain upon everything, including us. There is no way that we can rid ourselves of that stain. The sin that entered into the human race through the rebellion of Adam and Eve has left us with a debt that we can never repay. That's why the Father sent His Son, Jesus, to pay that debt though His death on the cross. And He sealed the victory won there with His resurrection to life from that death. He paid the debt we could not pay and He paid it all. Jesus paid it all. Yet somehow, we struggle to believe this. There must be something we have to add, and there is. We have to cease our striving and enter into the finished work of Jesus Christ. That's the only way to erase the stain of sin. Have you entered into that work? If not, will you not enter into it now?

We are lost without Him and all our striving will not help us. May we confess our weakness and the stain of sin in our lives, and then answer His call to enter into His life through the finished work of the cross.  May we know, finally, that He not only paid it all, but that He is our all in all.

Blessings,
Pastor O