21 April 2018 One Unshakable Core Belief

One Unshakable Core Belief

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Something needs to be solid in your life if you are going to grow spiritually. It’s the belief that God is good.

saying grace - God is goodMaybe you said it at dinnertime in a childhood version of grace. The notion comes up in songs at church. We find it in Scripture. But people sorely question it when bad things happen. Still, every person has to resolve whether or not they will agree with this one core belief…

G   o   d        i   s        g   o  o   d.

How can God be good?Many reject this belief wholesale. Their hearts cry, “Evidence! Look at the suffering in the world and what God has allowed! How can there even be a God, much less a good God?”

Author Brent Curtis wrote about God as the playwright in Job’s story, and how similarly, “the story we find ourselves living in often seems to use up characters like trailer courts in tornado season.” He goes on to say, “I am filled with not a little outrage as well as an anxiety that wants to ask for a much smaller part of the play than Job had, or possibly even a role in a more off-Broadway production that I could help direct. You know, something like God Helps Brent Pursue Money, Wealth, and Fame While Living a Quiet Life.

Is the good in suffering?“There is something frightening about being in a play in which the director may allow the plot to descend on my character…causing deep emotional or even physical harm.”[i]

Is God good? 

Countless individuals keep this mystery as a perpetual, unanswerable question. It’s on the back burner, simmering with torment. For believers, it undermines their faith with an increasing undertow of skepticism.

good people have it easyYet amazingly, some people of faith wholeheartedly embrace the truth that God is good.

suffering people believe God is good

Harriet Tubman

You might be tempted to think these folks live cushy lives, attend prosperous churches, have never fought in a war, and have compliant children. But more often than not, they have endured unspeakable suffering and injustices. Continue reading

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15 July 2017 Without A Prayer

Without A Prayer

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“If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I’d look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just feel a prayer.” 

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

My friend Robin and I had a long talk one morning about prayer. Going to God with a list of needs and wants brought some answers. Still, in her experience, many requests seemed unresolved over the years and left her discouraged.

I know what she means. I’ve been caught in that same cycle of disappointment. Some of that pointed to my own flawed beliefs and patterns.

fretful prayer is a revolving doorFor starters, my prayers were often a revolving door of fret. Instead of releasing concerns to God, I’d keep them and remain weighed down.

God spoke to me recently through the word “crease.” The dictionary definition says, “a wrinkle or furrow in the skin, typically of the face, caused by age or a particular facial expression.” Surely, fretful prayers produce wrinkles!

But a crease is also like a rut—“a long deep track made by repeated passage,” or “a habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change.” Fretting prayers can become a dead spiritual habit. We do it because we don’t know what else to do. But unanswered prayers can stoke the fires of discontent and unbelief.

Bill Johnson, Senior Pastor of Bethel Church in Redding California said that many of God’s people are like a dislocated arm. They are alive but not functioning because of disappointment. And so our prayer life actually becomes another tactic the enemy uses to keep us dismayed and far away from God.

How did this happen? Prayer should connect us to God in ever increasing ways!Continue reading

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