"My Hope is Built on Nothing Less..."

Ecclesiastes 11:4. 

"Whoever watches the wind will not plant: whoever looks at the clouds will not reap."

We are living in strategic times.  There is a lot of "wind watching" (as the bible puts it) happening around the earth right now.  Simply put, to watch the wind is to look at circumstances and what is happening in the natural atmosphere to determine what decisions should be made and what kind of life you can have! I love that Ecclesiastes is so specific here when it says, he who looks at outward conditions will NOT ever find them good enough to put a seed in the ground!  

The world we find ourselves a part of right now, ONLY operates this way!  Stock markets rise and fall, success comes and goes, popularity and human praise is short lived... And then what?  Outward conditions are ever changing and are the LEAST stable places to bank all of our hope and yet it is so easy to to find ourselves doing just that. 

The year was 2001 and it was the Tuesday before the September 11th attacks on our country.  My husband Paul and I were living in Birmingham, AL. At the time.  We had just built our first little home and we had a nice church and a nice life. Everything was going well. And then it happened, Paul's boss came into his office and announced that the company was in trouble and that major cutbacks would be taking place.  Because of this he was laid-off.  

He came home that day and there we were job-less and shocked that "just like that" everything could change.  We had to gather ourselves and begin to form a plan on how to go forward.  Then, that very week, our nation was brought to it's knees when the terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  The unthinkable was everywhere I looked!  There seemed to be no relief and fear was completely gripping my heart.  

I was watching the wind and becoming unstable in my spirit as I did.  As I realized what was happening in my spirit, I knew I needed Jesus to show me IN the storm, how to trust HIM.  

Jesus speaks in Luke 21 of the kind days that are coming upon the earth preceding His great coming. He said that as the Day draws near, people's hearts will be full of fear.  Luke 21:25-26. " Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world.."    The terror the bible is describing is one that comes from watching the wind.  Jesus bothered to warn us ahead of time that days like this would come, not to depress us and scare us, but to help us not to worry and fear the way everyone else around the world will worry and fear!

I realized during those months in 2001 of joblessness that Jesus was and would always BE the only place my hope could ever stay!! Nothing else is guaranteed. Just Jesus.  It was a minute by minute shift that started to happen in me as I started to take my eyes off of the wind and put them back on my Savior.  But it happened.  

My situation didn't change overnight.  We still had to walk out the effects of joblessness. But Jesus took care of every need we had.  This hasn't been a one time lesson in my life either!  FOUR more times, for similar reasons all out of our control, we would find ourselves without a job, but WITH a choice.  Watch the wind? Or Look at Jesus?  

These are moments where true FAITH is born. In the fire. It isn't easy to TRUST Jesus when outward conditions seem so far away from being okay.  But He is still just as ever-present as He has always been. When the world says, "be terrorized with what could happen or with what has happened," Jesus says, "keep your eyes on me."  

The days that are coming are very important for the people of God. We have the great privilege and assignment to lead people out of darkness and into the Light of Jesus.  We don't do it by having a nice theory, (when was the last time a theory helped you?)  about how this is done.  We do it by showing others the PATH we, ourselves, have walked with Jesus leading all the way.  

Maybe you have had the best week of your life or maybe this week has blown you away with unexpected opportunities to watch the wind and you find yourself in a storm today.  Can I just encourage you that Jesus IS with you and days like this prove our hope can be built on nothing less then Christ Alone....

Luke 21:27-28, "At that time they will see the of Man coming in a cloud and with power andGREAT glory. When these things begin to take place, STAND UP and LIFT UP YOUR HEADS, because your redemption is drawing near."  

"Mightier Than The Noise Of The Mighty Waters"

6/23/13, 7:22 AM

Psalm 93:3-4


“The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up the roaring of their waves.
 The Lord on high is mightier and more glorious than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty “breakers and waves of the sea.”

I've never thought about flood waters being full of noise before.  But they are.  They rush and roar and command total attention. Noise, has an inescapable quality and an air of torment.

In recent years we have all watched as floods have ravaged cities and people all over the world.  We have watched as Tsunami waters wipe out thousands of people in a matter of moments and forever change the face of nations and families.  Yes, I do believe floods are full of noise.

Floods are far reaching. They overtake and destroy, leaving behind damage, disappointment and loss.  I spent some time last year in Denpasar, Indonesia where I was given an up close view of what a flood can do as I met some of the children left orphaned by the Tsunami there.  What could be louder than the noise that the loss of family and all you have known can bring?  Can there be anything louder?

Yet How significant this one little passage in Psalm 93 is!  "The Lord on high is MIGHTIER and MORE GLORIOUS than the noise of the many waters…".

It is so easy in the midst of the noise and panic of a flood to forget that The Lord on high IS mightier!  His voice is louder than the noise round about.  His power to SAVE and REDEEM (or buy back) is unmatched. No mater how high the waters have come, the Voice of God is over the waters.  He sends the word and the waters are held back.

When I went to see the children of Indonesia, what I found wasn't devastation!  Surprisingly, I couldn't find mourning and self-pity for all that these little ones had experienced in their short lives so far.  What I found was the sound of VICTORY rising.  I heard the voices of children singing the praises of Him who called them OUT of darkness and INTO the Glorious Light of  Jesus!  I saw joy and laughing in places that made no sense. I heard stories of hope when all hope should have been gone!

What had happened as praise and worship began in these children's lives? The noise of the waves and the war was being SILENCED  and a declaration was going forth that our God IS greater! "Out of the mouths of babes you have ordained PRAISE to SILENCE the avenger and the foe!" (Psalm 8) The more they sang and talked about how Jesus found them and saved them, the quieter the waters were becoming.

Those days in Indonesia have forever changed me.  I will always remember the VOLUME of the voices of the children  that first moment I walked into their service and heard them sing. I remember and I am challenged to SING all the louder.  Louder than the noise of the waters...

  This I know for sure, there is NOTHING that the power of Jesus Christ cannot overcome!  No flood, no noise, no devastation is beyond His ability!  There is nothing we face that is truly hopeless when we know Jesus. So SING.  Psalm 31:24, "Be strong and take heart, all you who Hope in The Lord!"

"what matters most"

Acts 20 MSG

"But there is another urgency before me now.  I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I'm completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there. I do know that it won't be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started. The job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God."

I am so challenged today by Paul's faithfulness. He wasn't held back by the hard times but instead he embraced them as a mission he CHOSE to accept, revealed to him through the Holy Spirit.

It is so easy when our circumstances become treacherous in some way to shift our focus to changing the circumstance. To stopping the bleed.  To relieving the pain.  To just get the breakthrough or get to the "other side" of " this".  But the profound nature of Paul's words in Acts 20 tell us that God showed him what awaited him and none of it was good!  (In the natural). Yet, he embraced it.

It is also easy when our circumstance becomes treacherous in some way to become disoriented and sudden confusion can set in about "if" God is still with us!  Circumstances can play such a preeminent role in our lives. If things are going well, we must be "blessed," but if we are in a desert in our health or a winter in our marriage or in a valley of job loss we must be doing something wrong and are no longer living"blessed."  This plays out most clearly as we see how the effect of what is happening around us begins change to what we truly believe and we never truly know what we REALLY believe until our belief is tested.

In our Western world idea of blessing we so easily equate blessing with a lottery comparison! Bags of money falling out of the sky and into our laps!  Blessing cannot be reduced solely to a social status, or financial status.  While those things can be a blessing... THE TRUE blessing is knowing Jesus and the promise of heaven over eternal separation from God!  With this worked out properly in our hearts, we can see ourselves as blessed in ANY condition!  If we assess God's blessing on our lives solely through the lens of money or lack of money, we set ourselves up to be on a roller coaster of believing, God only when we have it and unbelief when we don't!


As we walk through the seasons of our lives it becomes critical to remember the TRUTH of the Word of God, which will always anchor our soul safely in times of trouble.  "I the LORD change not." (Mal. 3:6) "Jesus Christ is the SAME yesterday, today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8)  "Heaven and earth may pass away but my words will never pass away."  (Matt.24:35 )

Paul could have easily thought, "Maybe God isn't with me or maybe God is mad at me." When the Holy Spirit revealed that there would be hard times ahead. Instead Paul didn't take the bait of Satan in that moment that would surely discourage and take away his confidence in the goodness of God and instead said something that shocks me!  He said, "But THAT matters LITTLE!"

He made a conscious choice to magnify, to make large, what matters most.  I'm sure he thought about what awaited him (How could he not?) but he chose to let NOTHING take from him his TRUST in God and His life's assignment and mission.

He said, "what matters to me MOST is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all About this incredibly extravagant generosity of God."  What mattered to Him most wasn't the  trials and imprisonments, it was victoriously getting the word to the world that Jesus saves!

Our lives really come down to this one thing, finish the task assigned to each one of us who calls upon the Name of Jesus... Let everyone know all about the wonderful gift of salvation through Jesus Christ!  No matter what kind of season we find ourselves in right now, Someone needs your story.  Someone needs to know how much Jesus Loves them and has a plan for their life.  Someone needs to know that Jesus is an "ever present help" IN the storm! Someone needs to know what matters MOST...