Only This

“He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”  Psalms 91: 11

 

My sight is so limited I cannot see beyond the next curve in the road, or over the next hill; so Heavenly Father, I would beseech Thee….

 

Only This

 

No favor would I ask, my God, of Thee

                But only that Thy Presence still shall lead,

And that Thy tender love o’ershadow me

                Though paths be rough and cause my feet to bleed.

 

I have no right to pray for carefree days,

                (Thy earthly life was marred with so much pain),

But by Thy grace and comfort, I can praise

                Through darkest vales, as well as sunlit plain.

 

There may await some mount of sacrifice

                Where I must put the knife to all I love;

But this I know, an angel can provide

                The offering that cometh from above!

 

There is a peace in knowing Thou dost care,

                Though all the winds of Satan ‘round me blow.

No favor then I ask but just to share

                The love of Christ that will not let me go!

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

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Micah’s Message

Written by A Prodigal on September 2, 2006.

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It’s a Saturday morning, well into year number five of this exile.  I’m not on the top of the world this morning – not by a long shot.  Despite my most well-intentioned efforts to remain positive –numerous writers have opined that it’s a choice – I am anything but positive this morning.

I feel abandoned by those I need the most.  Taken for granted by those I try to help.  Unloved by the very ones I love more than life itself.

Maybe it’s that I just have too much time on my hands – too much time to think.  Too much time for the enemy of my soul to plant pessimistic, defeated, the “glass-is-half-empty” , “things-will-never-get-any-better” thoughts.  It’s the same with any prison, I reckon, whether physical, emotional, relational, or psychological.  Too much time to spend dwelling on the negative side of things.

And once you embark on that road, anxiety begets anxiety and you can so easily find yourself completely devoid of all hope.

The people of Judah living under the reign of good King Hezekiah were no doubt feeling the same way.  From without, under siege by the Assyrian army which had already routed and relocated the nation of Israel.  From within, exploited and oppressed by the wealthy, the rulers and the false prophets.  The light of hope was flickering – like mine is this morning.

September 11, 2002 – II

On that fateful day for America – September 11, 2001 – I was fresh out of jail and sitting at my brother’s house, thanks to some friends who bailed me out.

As my Dad wrote this letter a year later, I was back in the bowels of the county jail beginning my prison term.

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9-11!!!!

Dear Son,

I hope you are OK!  Haven’t heard from  you yet, but maybe they moved you – maybe I’ll hear something today….

This is a day of remembrance for the arrack on America.  Big ceremonies at New York and Washington.  So man killed and now we are on the brink of another war with Iraq.

I have written “Thank You” cards to your brother and sister-in-law and your aunt for their help and generosity while I was down there.  Also, a birthday card to my brother.  He’ll be 72 this Sunday.  His wife is in France with her children which has left my brother alone.  He doesn’t do well alone.  I worry about his wife flying with the nation on “high alert” for terrorist attacks.

I’m anxious to hear from you, Son.  Whenever it’s possible.  I weep day and night over you and your Mother….and your boys.

Gotta run get these cards in the mail.  I love you, Son.  No matter what!!!

Dad

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A father’s love is an amazing thing!!!!!

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For more of the Prodigal’s Mail, click here.

When Answers Don’t Come Quickly

Written by A Prodigal on September 1, 2006.

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“…always pray and never give up!” – Luke 18:1b

Is there any doubt that God desires and rewards our faith?

Are you ever prone to question why some situations arise and then just hang on – like a parasite threatening to suck the life and faith and joy out of you?  Does it ever seen like the heavens are brass bouncing your prayers right back at you?  Are you ever tempted to call it quits, throw in the towel and surrender?

Well, take a lesson from Hannah.  She knew all about it.  She had the dream of every woman of her day – to give birth to a son.  A simple, normal, natural, God-given desire.  The yardstick by which self-worth was measured.  But she couldn’t conceive.  She remained childless – in spite of her husband’s love and attention – in a society where the barren were shunned – a disgrace.

And, as if that weren’t bad enough, her “rival”, her husband’s other wife, gave her a hard time over it.  Ridicule and insults were Hannah’s lot.  Sound familiar?  Know the feeling?

Well, look at how she handled it.  You think she was ever hurt?  Of course.  Who wouldn’t be?  Angry?  Surely!  Verse 7 sees her provoked to tears.  Discouraged?  Probably!  Verse 8 finds her husband asking why she is so downhearted.

But lose her faith?  Not a chance!  She remained true.  She continued to pray.  She continued to believe.  She never gave up.  She trusted God.

Miracles

“The natural man received not the things of the spirit…”
I Corinthians 2:14

No miracles? Not to the blind of heart who still attempt to explain away the manger, and scoff at the empty tomb. Not for the self-righteous and the self-sufficient. Only the pure in heart see God; only the righteous behold His ….

Miracles

Many say the time of miracles is past–
That God is somehow limited in power today;
The Hand that guides the course of myriad worlds
No longer heals the sick, or stoops to save!
They think God’s love has changed with fleeting years;
So they languish hopeless in their sin and fears.

But Oh, they are in error to be sure.
God changes not! His power is just the same!
The blood of Christ still heals the sin-sick soul.
Transforms the life, and breaks each fettering chain.
These miracles are real to all who seek
Redemption in the fount of Calvary.

God is the same! He heals, and saves, and keeps–
I know, for He has done as much for me!

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

Also, please subscribe below for weekly updates on this site.

September 11, 2002 – I

9/11/02

Dear One,

It was good to see you again last night, but broke my heart to see you in so much pain.

On the way home, I was listening to Family Life and someone quoted this: “After you have suffered a little while, God will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.”  No reference was given, so I got my Bible out to find it and in less than three minutes there it was!  I Peter 5:10b.  Claim it for your own.  God longs to restore all good things to you, His precious child.  He will not keep you in the “fiery furnace” one minute longer than you need to be there to learn what He so longs to teach you.  Have Him search your heart and purge all the anger and bitterness out.  I’m praying with you and for you.

Keep strong and hold firm to all that you know is real.  God loves you perfectly.

Remember the three Hebrew children prayed, “We know you can, God, but even if you don’t we will still not bow down….”  He can and will in His timing and you can.

You are loved…….

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She didn’t know it when she wrote this note – had no way of knowing…..none of us did – that the “little while” would last so long.  But, in the end, I realized how perfect His timing was.  He knew – of course He did – just when all the pieces that would make up my new life would be ready to be pulled together.

And it’s a beautiful thing.  I praise Him for His “not yet”s and His “it’s time”s.

Praise His Dear Name.

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For more of the Prodigal’s Mail, click here.

Distracted

Written by A Prodigal on August 31, 2006.

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Early this morning while in the midst of my quiet time with the Lord, an interrupting thought intruded.  About a coat, of all things – a coat recently lost to me.

It was a great coat.  Black and waist length.  Zip-out lining that doubled as a windbreaker.  Pockets everywhere and Velcro take-ups at the cuffs.  I loved that coat.  And it was taken away from me!

I can’t explain why that thought entered my mind as I was reading the end of Isaiah, but it did.  A beautiful coat lost forever.  But the coat is only the tip of the iceberg; for once the Enemy starts me down that particular road, other things cascade in my mind.  A motorcycle with the paint job I designed.  A brand new riding lawn mower – hardly used.  The beautiful acreage.

And not only material things, but my family, my church, my career.  Gone – all gone.  Taken from me for a stupid mistake.

But, in His faithfulness, as I’m careening down that wide highway of regret heading toward the only destination – depression – God provides a place to turn around.  As I open my daily devotional book to check out the thought for the day, the Scripture sears my mind: “Forgetting those things which are behind…”  And I realize how senseless it is for me to lament over those things.  They’re gone.  Worrying won’t restore them to me.  Fretting won’t bring them back.  Being depressed only ruins today – it does nothing to alter the past.

If I believe that my sins are forgiven and are lying somewhere at the bottom of His sea of forgetfulness – and I do…. 
If I believe He makes all things new – and I do…… 
If I believe that He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it – and I do….. 
Then all I must do is “reach forth unto those things which are ahead” and keep the ultimate prize in sight.

He can restore the lost things if He chooses but, regardless, I choose to press toward the mark.

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For more Ponderings, click here

My Trial

“For he made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” II Corinthians 5:21

 

The Son of God made atonement for the sin of the world upon His death on the cross, yet before He made that supreme sacrifice, He underwent that ignominious, farcical trial which was….

 

My Trial

 

He suffered so, my Saviour, in those hours of woe–

                ‘Tis onerous for us to vaguely know

                Salvation’s crucial cost;

But He, the precious Son of God,

Whose footsteps to the judgment trod,

                Faced that cruel, unreasoning mob,

                And then the Cross!

 

The High Priests knew, and Pilate reasoned too,

“I find no fault in this just Man, I vow!”

                And taking water, he began to wash his hands,

                To cleanse his guilt, but in that awful land

He washes them through endless ages, and

                No doubt, he washes now.

 

The question comes: WHO was on trial that day,

Before they led the Son of God away?

                And as I kneel and questioningly pray, the answer comes;

                Not Jesus, not the Holy One so fair,

                Was being tried by vengeful sinners there,

But those High Priests, and Pilate, yes, and-l..-

                Was tried before my Saviour went to die!

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

Also, please subscribe below for weekly updates on this site.

 

 

Back to Prison – Part I

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  (II Corinthians 4:8-9)

 

Dejected?  Surely!

 

Confused?  Probably!

 

But doubting? Never!

 

Joseph maintained his faith and started over again. Those were days and weeks and months of idleness, made all the worse coming from his place of responsibility. His nights were consumed with wondering what was going to happen and why he had been removed from usefulness and productivity.  Surely he remembered the meals in Potiphar’s house (meals he had planned) as he ate the prison gruel.  Certainly, lying on the straw mat, he thought of the soft bed he so recently had had.  He probably asked God more than once why he was being punished when he had done nothing wrong.  And Potiphar’s wife?  How long before forgiveness replaced the resentment?

 

But he waited on and trusted in his God.  And God did not disappoint—God made him a success.  A successful inmate; now there is an apparent oxymoron.  But God caused the jailer to take notice of Joseph, and, before you know it, Joseph was running the jail!

Lord, Keep Me Low

“If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange God; Shall not God search this out? For He knoweth the secrets of the heart.”  Psalms 44:20, 21

 

With the attitude of a heart ever on its knees because Thou art all worthy- because Thou hast done the “exceeding abundantly” for me….

 

Lord, Keep Me Low

 

Lord, keep me low, but ever looking up,

                If needs must be, through constant pain and tears,

Lest I forget Thy tender, patient love–

                Thy miracles throughout the trying years!

 

Lord, keep me sheltered in that “secret place,”

                When Satan as a lion would ensnare;

Sheltered, yes, but filled with the living grace

                That sees my brother’s need, and proves I care.

 

O Saviour, may I love Thee with a single heart–

                No will but Thine my life to regulate;

So broken to the yoke of love divine

                 I shall be small enough to enter that “strait gate!”

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For more of the poetry of my grandmother, visit the “Uplifted Eyes” page.

Also, please subscribe below for weekly updates on this site.

Fourth Anniversary

Written by A Prodigal on August 30, 2006.

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Was my arm too short to ransom you?  Do I lack the strength to rescue you? – Isaiah 50:7

Four years.  To the day.  Forty-eight months I have been praying for this to end.  I’ve asked and sought and knocked.  I’ve fasted and prayed.  I’ve praised God in advance of His deliverance.  Over and over, day after day, month after month for the past four years.

And yet I am still here.  Still in my prison.

Daniel was in the lion’s den overnight.  Jonah sat in the fish-jail for a few days.  Even Joseph was released and elevated after a couple of years.

So my question is the obvious one – the human one.  Why me?  Why can’t deliverance come for me?

Today, as I read this verse again – for I’ve read it many times during these years – my focus changed.

His arm is not too short.  He does not lack the strength to save.  He protected Daniel, and delivered Jonah and Joseph.

The key is He did it in His time.  His plan and purposes are higher than we can comprehend (Isaiah 55:8-9).  He sees what is hidden from us.

If we truly believe Romans 8:28, and in the power of God, then wherever we are, is where He has placed us for His glory and our ultimate benefit.

So I relax.  I embrace Philippians 4:11, and am content to wait for His time.

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For more Ponderings, click here