Lord, today I confess I’m struggling
my heart not brave enough for the fight
how can I be your light of encouragement
when this heaviness weighs groaning on me?
You know me better than I know myself
all of my heart aches, heart breaks,
heart’s yearnings and attacks.
Today, though I don’t feel like it
I will serve You.
I can’t hide, or fake it…I can’t fool you!
Ignite in me, again your passion
blow into flame this desire
set my hopes and dreams aflame
ignition begins again on my knees
in prayer.
Her hair of gold
And eyes blue as
tropical seas
She means more to me
than she’ll ever know
Heart of my heart
joy within the happiest day
She is my love and light.
She laughs at me
And all is well
Such a spell I cannot deny
While I, heart brimming
Smile a toothy grin
This is how our world begins.
There captured in a moment
Under the moon’s soft glow.
Some things
Are worth fighting for
Waiting for, living for
Heart of my heart for sure
Of all the joys and folly known
No deeper, no greater
Than your love has shown
My reason, this fool’s purpose
To love you and cherish
These days…
Always
Heart of my heart!
Captivate my heart, O Lord,
Ransack and decimate my sins
shatter all of my dreams and hopes
if you were not invited too.
Banish my selfish, prideful heart
that wants only to be seen by others
hold hostage in me the un-surrendered
unwavering, unapologetic closets
that I have kept from your light.
Shake me into awakening
make me bleed so I can feel
Your love must hurt me deeply
before I can be restored.
Melt away my apathy
I’ve been far too numb to care
tear down my idol worship
of things and people and places
Lord begin this in me today…
Violently awaken me
and allow me to drink from your
still waters and refreshing grace
I’ve been comatose for far too long
like a sleepwalker through life.
Tear away these scales from my eyes
allow me to finally see the world
in your blinding light.
Shine on me and reveal how I really am.
-Amen.
“I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way–in all your speaking and in all your knowledge.” (1 Corinthians 1:4-5)
My friends, we shouldn’t need a specific holiday to remind us that we ought to be thankful…but it doesn’t hurt! Thankfulness should be second nature to a Christ-follower, and yet it is often easy to take the blessings, that we have been given, for granted. The challenge for us is to learn the discipline of simplicity. What is simplicity? It is the discipline of letting go of our hunger and craving for more “stuff”. It is letting go of our lusts for possessions, affluence, popularity, recognition and power. These things are called mammon. What is mammon? Webster’s dictionary even describes it with a biblical context: “material wealth or possessions especially as having a debasing influence <you cannot serve God and mammon — Matthew 6:24“
Richard Foster explains this issue:
“We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. ‘We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.’ …It is time to awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick.” (Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth)
Stuff, in essence, can become our god. It can consume us, making us ungrateful and blind to the truth. We can become lost in our “stuff”. Possessions and things aren’t inherently bad but it depends on how we use them.
Richard Foster had more to say on this topic:
“Jesus Christ and all the writers of the New Testament call us to break free of mammon lust and live in joyous trust…They point us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good. This reality frames the heart of Christian simplicity. It is the means of liberation and power to do what is right and to overcome the forces of fear and avarice.” (Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World)
The key to the discipline of simplicity is…well discipline. Do you really need that cell phone upgrade? Do you really need that new car? Separate your wants from your needs. Thanksgiving isn’t about getting more stuff to make you happy. It should be about appreciating what God has already given to us and utilizing these tools for His glory! That doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy life or become obligated to a boring existence. God created us to enjoy life and more importantly to enjoy His presence in life.
Are you experiencing life through thanksgiving? Do you have time in your day to just stop and say thank you to God for all of the awesome gifts and blessings He has given to you? Don’t wait for specific holidays to recognize your need for thanksgiving. Celebrate “Thanks-living” every day, because after all, each day is a gift from God!
“No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks” – Saint Ambrose
Life is precious…use it wisely!
“You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.” ― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Why does it still happen to us, who call ourselves Christ-followers? Why do we shy away from this disciplined, more refined lifestyle? God is calling us to something deeper, something far better than what we experiencing in the here and now. Why do we fight it? Could it be that we have something more to surrender? Could it be that we have held back a part of us from Him?
God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. He did what? It’s true. God told Abraham to take Isaac up into the mountains, build an altar and shed his only son’s blood as an offering and as a sign of allegiance to the Almighty. Scripture doesn’t say that Abraham refused, yet I struggle with this passage. How could a father follow through with a request like this? Abraham doesn’t refuse and he does what God asks of him, he goes up into the mountains and takes his son with him. Everything is premeditated, including the murder weapon. Yet I know that Abraham must have dreaded what was to come. He must have mourned and waged within himself over this request from God. Isaac’s name means “He laughs” and that is certainly what Abraham and Sarah did when they received the news that they would have a son. After all, Abraham was nearly a hundred years old when they received this divine news. But Isaac’s name meant much more then their initial response. He would bring joy into their lives. They would laugh until tears ran from their eyes! He was their answer to so many years of barrenness and familial emptiness. Isaac was Abraham and Sarah’s pride and joy…even to the point of replacing God.
We do this sometimes. People and even things have a tendency of replacing God as top priority in our lives. We don’t intentionally run from God, but little by little we find ourselves unwilling to surrender everything before Him. This is a very real danger in our ministries and in our spiritual journey and Christ-followers! We utter the chorus “I surrender all” with our lips and yet in our hearts we’re holding onto something that needs to sacrificed at the altar of self!
Abraham didn’t hold back. He was obedient to God. Perhaps he understood the message that God was trying to send to him way before he held the sharp blade over his bound son on that stone altar. He certainly displayed his obedience in his response to Isaac’s questions about where the lamb was going come from when Abraham replied, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” (Genesis 22:8) Though Isaac had become his pride and joy, and perhaps, for a time replaced God on his priority list, Abraham had faith! His faith was indeed rewarded when an Angel appeared and stopped him from completing costly sacrifice. The angel said, ““Do not lay a hand on the boy,…Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” (Genesis 22:12)
If, today, we find ourselves far away from God because we have run may we return to Him! If, today, we find that we have placed others of things before God may we be willing to lay them all at His feet in total surrender. God is faithful and longs for us to return to Him! He also longs to make us holy people, the very image of Christ for all the world to see. But that image cannot remain on us if we are unwilling to surrender everything and return to Him!
Prayer:
Lord in my returning, make me holy.
Lord in my renewal, send the fire!
May my life and heart be ever for you
restore me from sin-sick muck and mire!
If speech and arts are not accompanied by love and passion
they will fall horribly short and mean nothing but empty sound.
If actions are done out of obligation without compassion and care
they will reach numbed hands and cold hearts in a winter world.
If our actions are compelled only by our pay checks and selfish desires
we will start fires in our pocketbooks but not in the hearts of men.
It will all be for naught and this world would have inherited another cold soul.
Passion, fire and love begin and end with a heart knowledge of God.
Without such an intimate experience we can live, but it will be temporal
it will be less, it will be empty and vacant where He could reside and stoke
the fires of our souls and passions.
Dear Lord, Ignite our flames once more.
Ignite in us Your burning passion for Holiness and compassion
for this world in which we live.
May our worship not be out of obligation or command
but out of love and this deep desire to know more of You,
and through this engulfing flame, may our eyes
see others the way You see them and be spurned to act
without our interests in mind, but to capture the hearts
of others for You and Your kingdom come.
-Amen.
I am laying in bed listening to the sounds of the wailing wind through a half cracked bedroom window. The swirl of rotting leaves, a cacophony of sound merrily at a play in the frosty yard below. I have no where to go on this cold November morning. No plans to keep, or commitments to make…yet I am restless. I once heard that idle hands are the devil’s play ground, but on this morning encompassed by a gale of fury with winter knocking, I am all but content in remaining absolutely still.
Here’s just another reminder about a fun competition that I would like to begin here on my blog. This is our first annual (with more to come I hope) creative arts competition.
Criteria is listed below:
Hey fellow writers and avid readers! I would like to announce a writing competition that I would like to conduct right here on this blog site: http://www.scottstrissel.wordpress.com
I am looking for your entry submissions for the following categories:
Photographs:
Submissions to this category MUST be your own work and not cut and pasted from someone else! These photographs should represent elements of “Thanksgiving” not just the holiday but the emotion, family, Christ, Salvation, our spiritual journey. Please limit your photo entries to five photos.
Poetry
Submissions to this category MUST be your own work and not cut and pasted from someone else!
Again the topic is Thanksgiving and as mentioned above should include some of these thematic elements. Please utilize a total of 750 words, less is fine , but no more that 750 words.
Prose (Story form or article format):
Submissions to this category MUST be your own work and not cut and pasted from someone else!
Again the topic is Thanksgiving and as mentioned above should include some of these thematic elements. Please utilize a total of 800 words, less is fine but more will be rejected.
Winners:
Of each category will be announced on November 29th (the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, AKA Black Friday)
The winners will be post here on this blog site and will receive a bag of Starbucks Coffee (hey I wish I had cash prizes to give you but I’m a broke Pastor with four kids to feed).
I will accept international submissions and if chosen I will post your submission here, but I WILL NOT be able to mail you coffee (sorry).
DUE DATE OF SUBMISSIONS:
November 23rd, 2013 by NOON CST (US central standard time)
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY:
Please submit your entry to: scottstrissel@yahoo.com
Please, also label it on your e-mail “Thanksgiving Writing Competition”
Life is marred by many things
and busy schedules
with phones that ring
and Lord I confess I forget You.
When worries increase
and time flies by
my space all leased
I am left wondering why…
why have I forgotten You?
These fears flood in
and hope leaks out
under-sieged by sin
and I’m without
why have I forgotten You?
Until on my knees I must bend
In prayer and solitude again
to reconnect with the Eternal friend
this is how is begins and ends.
1 Samuel 8:6-9 (NIV)
But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD.
And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”
God’s heart must have ached in hearing the pleas of His people. They demanded a king. They looked around at the other nations and coveted what they had. God had provided them food and protection in a barren land during the exodus, and He had provided them lands to call their own, but still they strayed from Him. Still they wanted more. Enemies were vanquished before His people, provisions were met and yet they took it all for granted.
When they cried out for a king in the setting sun of Samuel’s leadership, God reminded him that it was aimed at the Almighty. “It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.” (1 Samuel 8:7) Imagine for a moment giving up the One who was their fortress of protection. Imagine saying to God, your wealth, though it outnumbers the stars in the sky, is not enough for me…we want something else. God had poured out His love upon His people and they had rejected it again and again.
If there was ever a governmental system in this world that could stand the test of time it was and still is God’s model. No other form of government has ever before or ever will prove more pure and selfless than His. No other form of democracy will ever remain without being tainted by man’s selfish ambitions for power, prestige and wealth. Yet His people chose a lower form of government because other nation’s systems looked more appealing. The lure of other gods and openly degenerate moralistic standards appealed to the people of God. How awful Samuel, God’s prophet must have felt. How hurt and heartsick with grief Samuel must have been.
Have you ever felt the sting of rejection? I have a time or two. It is an emotion that without a doubt begs never to be repeated in the human heart. Though this went much deeper than a single person being rejected, God was rejected by the entirety of His chosen people! They turned their backs on Him. They decided that He couldn’t support their needs any longer and so a king would better suit their pleasures.
I imagine through pain, disdain and hurt God tells Samuel to give the people what they want. But He also warns Samuel to tell them what the results will be of their betrayal and choice. “Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.” (1 Samuel 8:9) The idea of a king was far more appealing to the people of God than actually considering the consequences of their choice. The king would reign over them, not like a loving, understanding and all knowing God, but like a man driven by selfish intentions and sin this would be how they would be ruled over.
God allowed them to choose. We are a created with this free-will within us. We are not compelled or forced to love and serve God. Yet when we choose to reject Him and His hand upon our lives we soon find that in our folly the devastating consequences of life without Him! I am not advocating for one form of government over another today, nor am I renouncing any leadership within our government (Scripture clearly says: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Peter 2:13-17)) But what I am saying is this; above everything choose Him. Don’t turn from the One who created us and has preserved our lives. Choose God. Serve Him, love Him and make Him Lord of your life above and before all else.
-Just a thought for today.
Pastor's Ponderings 