Scholar of Patience

We may joke about being too old to learn new things, however, the truth is that as long as we're still breathing there is opportunity to learn. Our English word "scholar" has its roots in a Latin word meaning "schoolchild" - quite simply, one who is still being schooled. Hebrews 10:36 says, "You have need of patient endurance [to bear up under difficult circumstances without compromising], so that when you have carried out the will of God, you may receive and enjoy to the full what is promised." (AMP). I suppose my most common response to that "need of patience" is ... I'll be patient as soon as this is over! Thomas Tryon wrote, "Patience endues their scholars with content of mind and evenness of temper; preventing all repining, grumbling, impatient desire, and inordinate affections." It is our selfish affections that cause us to grow anxious in difficulties: our constant eagerness for convenience and self-gratification. It is the kind, gracious and patient Heavenly Father alone Who produces this spiritual fruit of patience, endurance, perseverance. From a hymn writer's pen: "Sweet Patience, come - Not from a low and earthly source - Waiting, till things shall have their course - Not as accepting present pain - In hope of some hereafter gain - Not in a dull and sullen calm - But as a breath of heavenly balm - Biding my weary heart submit - To bear whatever God sees Fit - Sweet Patience, come." The school of patience welcomes all who will be a ... scholar of patience.

Choose Your Power

Do you know how powerful you are? Okay, you may not be stronger than a locomotive or able to stop a speeding bullet. No ... actually, you are much more powerful than that! An ill-placed frown or an unkind word can effectively send another person's day reeling! See, we are indeed very powerful. Men and governments brandish power but it is Elohim, The All Powerful One, Who ultimately holds and exercises the highest power. We may wake tomorrow morning with the silliest notion we own the day - wrong! Men will scoff at and reject such knowledge but Truth is unaffected by the scoffing. In these days of uncertainty, be certain of this: "For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the Great, the Mighty, and the Awesome God." (Deuteronomy 10:17). Wisely ... choose your power.

Best Personality

This world is full of ... personalities! Each one can be described as welcoming or abrasive, pleasant or obnoxious, gentle or harsh, and many other ways. For sure, distinctive differences and characteristics form each individual's disposition ... his or her personality. Genesis 1:26 gives us these words, spoken by the Godhead (Father, Son, Spirit): "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness." There's so much to this being created in God's image! Perhaps one of the most overlooked is how each person is created for the capacity to exhibit the personality of The Creator! Of course, we celebrate our uniqueness but that doesn't include an independence from and an absence of devotion to The One Who has given us breath to be the best image-bearer we can be. A great danger is when we allow our personalities to interfere with living-out the character of Christ. Paul wrote, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me." (Galatians 2:20, NASB). Bearing the image and personality of Christ is a daily laying-down, a setting-aside of how my personality may direct me; and, instead it is a taking-up, an embracing-of He Who lives within me. It's a personality not of ourselves but of The Creator and The Savior and The Holy Spirit! Now, that is personality at its best!

Just Rest

Perhaps one day I will but I've not visited Lake Tahoe. Read what Hannah Whitall Smith wrote of it: “Among the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains, not far from the busy whirl of San Francisco, lies Lake Tahoe. It is twenty-three miles long, ten miles wide, and so deep that a line dropped nineteen hundred feet does not touch bottom; and it lies five thousand feet above the neighboring ocean. Storms come and go in waters that are lower down the mountains, but this lake is so still and clear that the eye can penetrate, it is said, a hundred feet into its depths. Around its mild verdant sides are the mountains, ever crowned with snow. The sky above is as calm as the motionless water. Nature loses scarcely anything of its clear outline as it is reflected there.” Oh my, we have trouble being still ... my mind usually outruns my spirit!  It's not uncommon for pressures and endless tasks of each day to bully our good nature.  I imagine we all need a time of cease and desist!  Psalm 46:10 says, “be still and know that I am God,” calling us to cease the sin which hinders our knowing God intimately.  When we do … stop, that is … we can experience the calmness of His Spirit and thus become a deep and lovely reflection of Christ’s beauty.  The world sure needs to see that in Christ-followers – the Savior’s peacefulness.  Let's practice being still ... knowing God. Just rest.

Don't Forget It!

Have you ever played the "what-if" game with a child: what-if there was no gravity ... what-if cats had wings ... on and on it goes. The acceptance of God as omniscient (all-knowing) and sovereign (all-mighty) can be tough especially when we allow our minds to wonder ... what-if. I've often found myself in circumstances of difficulty and the temptation to to second-guess God. We have this great truth in Isaiah 44:21(NASB) - "Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are My servant; I have formed you, you are My servant, O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me." Don't miss these precious words: "you will not be forgotten by Me." You see, that hard situation or circumstance, that troubling relationship, that anxious moment, that looming mountain of trouble ahead - God knows about it and He will not forget you! Frances de Sales wrote, "Make friends with your trials as though you were always to live together." Oh, how quickly we want to pray ourselves out of difficulty instead of praying for acceptance of them and strength to walk through them as God refines us, grows us and presses us even closer to Him n tenderness and love. He never forgets us nor abandons us: "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10, NASB). Life never stops being hard - neither does God stop being who He is ... altogether trustworthy and faithful. He will never forget you ... don't forget it!