Category: Faith and Hope

My soul melts from heaviness;

Strengthen me according to your word.

–Psalms 119:28

Some family friends had a bee infestation in their attic.  When the exterminator came and killed the bees, he gathered quite a bit of honey which our friends gave to us in a jar. It was such a sweet gesture — literally!

Now there’s a life picture of a spiritual truth: When Satan and the world came to exterminate Jesus, His life yielded sweetness that brings us out of bitterness into His glory. May we have this same response!

When we as Christians are persecuted, the world should expect us to yield the raw sweetness of Christ. Even our death should bring life and nourishment to others.  I confess I sometimes fear persecution when it stares me in the face. I keep having to remind myself of promises from God’s word.

God is my refuge.

God is my strength.

The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?

–Psalm 118:6

We will yield no sweetness of Christ if our souls are not illuminated with the word. Amith discovered a small cockroach nest under our bed. As he lifted the bed, the roaches scurried away in fear as light flooded their home. The demonic roaches of fear which hide in the dark places of our hearts must flee when confronted with the light of the truth found in the gospel.

God is love.

God is sufficient.

We are His.

He is bigger than our problems.

Psalm 46

God Is Our Fortress

To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A Song.

A mind filled with God’s word has no room for Satan’s lies. There are a few people who I really look up to, and I think about what they all have in common. The characteristic they all share is that they are saturated with the Word of God. They spend the vast majority of their time reading the Bible and meditating on it.

Being saturated in the word will bring a person mental clarity, wisdom, grace and joy. The key, of course, is not being merely hearers of the word, but also doers. Rather than letting the Word go through one ear and out the other, the people I look up to absorb what they hear and let it affect every aspect of their lives.  We must read the word with the clear intent of growing in our relationship with God.

The most important factor in our walk with Jesus Christ is to abide in him. The more we abide in Christ, the more we will have peace, victory over sin, and be In His Steps. What does it mean to abide in Christ? According to Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of “Abide” is,

“Of a person: to wait for, await; to remain ready for, watch for, expect.”

To abide has to do with the concept of ‘being’ instead of ‘doing.’ Doing in relation to the Christian walk is: reading your Bible, going to church, praying, witnessing, doing good works, fleeing sin, etc. These are all good things to do as a Christian.  These are things we should be doing. If we are not doing these things our walk with God and others will suffer.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

 steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

–Psalm 89:14

However, if we are doing these things just because we are suppose to, or we are doing them in our own strength, we will not have victory or peace and miss out in having an intimate relationship with Christ. If we are not careful, we can become works oriented instead of Christ oriented.

Today we met with the pastor who preformed our marriage.  He said something very wise, “Sometimes when you’re reading a portion of scripture, you think, ‘Oh this will make such a great message!’  You’ll bless your congregation, but you yourself with not take any scripture to heart.  We can easily fall into the trap of forgetting our relationship with God.”

To Abide in Christ is to be in the ‘being’ mode. We still are doing the things that God has called us to, but we are doing it in His strength.

“21 “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” –Romans 3:21-26

Righteousness is a good and right relationship with both God and other people.

God is faithful to bring His children into righteousness with Him, erasing their guilt and redeeming them from evil.  Holiness is the fruit and behaviour of righteousness, and can only be attained through faith in Christ Jesus.

Abiding in Christ is about having an intimate relationship with Him.

The relationship is more important than the things we do or don’t do. The more we are abiding in Him, the more we will be faithful. We will hear His voice clearer, not be works oriented, and have more peace in our life. To abide is to experience His presence. Let’s explore the definition of abide: To wait for-We as Christians need to spend much more time waiting on God. By this we mean spending time with God, seeking His will, not jumping ahead of Him.

To endure without yielding-To be determined to experience God’s presence.

To bear patiently-To abide in Christ when we don’t feel like it. To be patient waiting for God to reveal His will and Himself.

To continue in a place-We need to spend more time, staying in His presence.

Why do you look forward to heaven?  Is is about a place?  Or is it about a person, that is, Christ?

If we are abiding in Christ, we can be assured that we will walk IN HIS STEPS and experience a little taste of heaven on earth.

Abiding in Christ is a process. We don’t get there overnight. So don’t get discouraged if it seems hard to just ‘rest in Him.’

Enjoy the mountains, the ocean, the blue skies, the thunder and lightning, the green pastures, the hot desert…

As you enjoy God’s creation, you will sense His presence.

Abiding will come.

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.“

–Philippians 1:6

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Sources:

“Abide, V.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, September 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6116853908.

This past year many heavy losses were met with and several of our friends and relatives passed on.  This has led people to curse this year as one of death and loss.

I recently received this email from my mom:

The reality is that loss hurts.  Simeon told Mary, “A sword will pierce your soul.”  Jesus wept to the Father, “Please take this away if it’s possible to do and still be within your will.”  Clearly, dreading the pain of loss is not a sin.  This is not doubting God’s sovereignty and power like fear is, it’s knowing that something is going to hurt.

Remember when Mary, Martha and the Jews were crying over Lazarus’s death, and the women said, “Lord, if you’d been here, Larazus wouldn’t have died?  Jesus did not rebuke them for their pain and their desire to have Lazarus back.  He wept with them at seeing their pain, even though He knew He was about to raise Lazarus.  (John 11:32-35)

Here are some thoughts that have helped me:

 

1. James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” God gave you [your husband], and any children you might have, as good and perfect (i.e. exactly right for His plan for the world, for you life and for their lives) and He will not take them away until doing so is a good and perfect gift.  His plans and work and gifts in our life don’t waver from good to bad and back again. Example:  Lovie.  [An elderly lady who we were close friends with.]  He blessed the three of us through each other, being prayer warriors, worshiping together, us seeing how God is very present right up to the end of life and her being less lonely because of us.  And when He took her, it was also good and perfect.  She is whole, you had moved…anyway, and in addition to learning several other lessons, I rejoiced that she was finally out of pain.  We can trust God that He will bring God out of every single thing that He allows in our lives and in our loved ones’ lives…

 

2. I don’t have to be capable of enduring right now what God allows in my life later.  Psalm 50:15 says, “Call upon Me in the day of distress; I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” So when those worries come, I remember I don’t have to solve such a situation right now.  I give those thoughts to God and ask Him to provide what I need when the time comes.  He is faithful.

 

3. He will be with me every step (“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me”), He will never leave me (“I will never leave you nor forsake you”) so I will never be alone.

 

4. I love my husband and my children so much, but the Father loves them even more.  He knows what’s best for them better than I do, He can protect them better than I can, He can fix their hurts, failures and needs that I can’t.  He will meet all of their needs, spiritually, physically, relationally, emotionally in His own time and His own way.  He sees the plan for their life from beginning to end and is working it all out.  He knows what He’s doing! In short, God is a way better Father to my loved ones than I could ever be a wife/mother to them.  So when I worry about what would happen to Dad or to you girls, or to my parents if I should die, I remind myself, “I was only a tool of God.  Their heavenly Father has been taking care of them all this time, and He will continue to do so.”

4.  I realize that pretty much every caring wife and mother I’ve ever met experience varying degrees of anxiety at times.  Somehow realizing that these are normal feelings helps me.  It’s like being grumpy during PMS.  You realize, “This is normal, not a big deal, really.”  You do what you can to alleviate it, like eating chocolate…but you don’t add the stress of worrying that it’s a deep spiritual problem, or that you’re immature or unusual.  It’s “welcome to the human race.”  It’s just, “Here are these anxious thoughts and feelings again.  Time to pull out the Bible verses and prayer and coping skills.”

 

Isaiah 57:1-2

The righteous man perishes,
    and no one lays it to heart;
devout men are taken away,
    while no one understands.
For the righteous man is taken away from calamity;
     he enters into peace;
they rest in their beds
    who walk in their uprightness.

 

I don’t personally know every single person who passed on this year.  But I do know that while it’s easy to become become bitter towards God due to our grief,  it’s folly to lose sight of His purposes.

While those of us who were left behind this year are naturally experiencing deep pain, many of those who have been taken from us are experiencing joy we could never imagine. They have entered into God’s presence, into the most perfect peace and love.  In human eyes this seems like a year of tragedy, but in heaven’s eyes I believe it has in a way been a year of new life and growth.

May The Comforter continually grant us peace.